Snapshots
by Seraephina
Summary: A collection of drabbles/oneshots based on a list of 100 one-word writing prompts. My form of a variety pack. Various pairings, including quite a few crack!ships foisted upon me. Enjoy, my duckies!
1. Jewelry

**Agh. Writer's block. Die. Die. Die.**

**First off: STUPID TITLE. But if it wasn't **_**Snapshots, **_**it was going to be **_**One Hundred Writing Prompts. **_**So yeah. Anyway, all this will be is a hundred unrelated chapters, with each chapter based off a one-word prompt. Used mostly to get rid of writer's block and siphon off random ideas. But tons of fun anyway. :) **

**Second: I'm putting the Seven Deadly Sins on hold for a bit. I'm really sorry. I absolutely despise having more than one story going on at a time, but I'm truly stuck in a rut with it. It's kind of hard to come up with seven whole chapters filled with murderous, angst-ridden, sin-laden thoughts.**

**So I'm officially starting **_**Snapshots**_**! Wh-hoo! :D**

**To give credit where credit is due, I got this idea whole writing-prompt-series idea from the absolutely fantastic SushiChica. She's awesome. No one can hope to rival her. :) **

**And finally, this chapter is more of an actual oneshot, so yay. And the following chapters won't all be like this. Sucky, I mean. I'm sorry that you have to read someone so bad and OOC as this first chapter, but I'm literally pushing the words out in a vain attempt to write through the block. Bleh. :(**

**Anyway…here goes! The first chapter! :) **

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**Prompt #1: Jewelry**

Maybe it was growing up with the poverty-stricken priests of Azarath. Maybe it was because she was cynical by nature. Maybe it was simply the way that material items had never held any value to her. Or maybe she just didn't like things that twinkled.

Whatever it was, one thing was certain: Raven had never really liked jewelry.

Her logical side was, of course, at odds with it. Jewelry was…irrational. Impractical. Just because something _sparkled_ did not mean you were supposed to hang it around your neck. And just because something happened to be a particular shade of the spectrum did not give you freedom to charge thousands of dollars for it. And earrings? Really, what a barbarian practice—puncturing your own flesh just to glitter a little. Why would you want to wear something so gaudy, anyway? Did people honestly want to walk around, boasting a disgustingly expensive diamond on their wrist? Did they really lust for the attention they received for buying a simple stone?

But even without the painfully analytical side of her brain, there was the softer side of her, the one that inwardly cringed a little every time she saw a public display of affection. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had always known that she was never really good enough for a jewel. She was too dark. Too plain. Too ordinary. She knew deep inside of her, in the black chasm where a heart should be, that no one would ever give her anything beautiful, because she simply wasn't worth it.

And so Raven decided to hate jewels. Because they were beautiful, and impractical, and far too glittery for their own good. Because men gave women jewels, when they made a declaration of love, or just to flatter the lucky girl. Because jewelry was given to people with power, and charisma, and _value. _Jewelry was given to people who were worth something.

Raven, at fifteen years old, was worth nothing.

And so Raven, at fifteen years old, had no jewelry.

But it all changed the night she turned sixteen.

--

_Okay. Now the music is really getting to me._

Raven had attended her own birthday party for three hours, and enough was enough. She escaped the over-warm living room as silently as possible, nodding and smiling to everyone as she left.

Three hours ago she'd been blindfolded, commanded by Starfire not to peek, and shown into the living room. Every single Titan, honorary or not, was there. They brought cake and ice cream and tofu and a piñata in the shape of Slade. And then they'd forced her to open presents. _All _the presents. Every. Last. One.

Sure, it had been nice and all. And Raven appreciated the gesture. But she had the queasy feeling that maybe her teammates were just trying to show up her last, disastrous birthday. And that maybe it was more of a pep rally to convince everyone that Slade was gone than a party. And besides—three hours of rap music had more than exhausted her ability to nod and smile. She was _done._

When Raven reached her darkened room, she sagged against the wall, drained. She could still hear the pounding rhythm of the stereo from the farthest corner of the Tower and a dull throb picked up in her head. Raven breathed in and out, trying to calm herself before slipping into her—mercifully—silent room.

_All I want is peace…and quiet…and to be left alone. _She opened the window, shivering a little as the chill night air streamed into the room, and slid between the cool sheets of her bed. The perpetual twilight of the room was comforting to her aching skull.

And then he spoke.

"Hey, cutie. Mind if I drop in?"

Raven jumped, terrified for a second, and then her eyes narrowed. She scanned the room out of pure instinct before remembering that it was dark. Damn.

"Get the _hell_ out of my room," she spat. He just chuckled, and Raven tried to pinpoint his voice. Behind her? In front of her? Beside her?

"Don't be like that, Rae." His warm breath tickled the back of her neck. "You _know_ you want me." Raven whirled around, but he had already disappeared from behind her. She swatted at the empty air anyway, and gritted her teeth when he laughed.

"If you don't leave me the hell alone, I swear to everything holy in the galaxies, I will blow your brains out, X."

Raven caught the tiniest glimpse of a lean, lanky figure slouching in the corner. He was gone in an invisibly fast movement, but she could swear he looked wounded somehow. Even through the mask.

She felt his fingertips skitter across her spine, and blasted the space behind her with icy black energy. For a second his sinewy body was illuminated—near the far corner of the room, white-edged against the black force-field—and she flung a shadowy black hand towards him. The fingers grasped at nothing.

He was gone.

Again.

Raven closed her eyes against the frustration welling up inside of her. She allowed herself a deep, slow breath, feeling a trickle of calm bleed through the irritation—

—and then she felt his lips brushing lightly against her throat.

Every nerve in her body screamed simultaneously.

Shock.

Horror.

Shame.

And…joy?

She felt paralyzed suddenly. She couldn't move. She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe. All she felt was his warm breath ghosting across the hollow of her throat, and for a moment it was her entire world.

Struggling, Raven tried to pull her thoughts back to the real world. "Stop doing that," she snapped, but her voice had gone husky—damn that Spandex-wearing freak—and she sounded pretty unconvincing. _Why am I not blowing his brains out? Why?_

Red X hadn't moved. It would be easy, so easy, just to grab his upper arms, and transport him to the Jump City Jail before any of the fifty-odd Titans a few rooms over decided to come looking for her. So…_easy…_

"If you didn't like this, Rae-rae, I'm pretty sure you would've locked me up in jail already," he purred, and Raven's skin buzzed deliciously as his lips moved across her throat. "Who knows? Handcuffs, restraints, padded rooms…maybe I'd even like it."

And then his hands found her waist.

Anger flared up in Raven's brain. No one—absolutely no one—touched her without permission.

This had gone on too far.

Power and thoughts and actions crackled back to life in her mind, and without a second thought, Red X was encircled by iron bands of black. To his credit, he didn't scream or anything when he was yanked into the air, like Dr. Light always did. He just looked down at her from his elevated height, expression unreadable behind the sleek mask.

"Don't you _dare_ touch me. _Ever. Again_." Her fingers were shaking with fury.

"C'mon, dollface. You know you're enjoying this." Raven snarled and tightened the grip of her powers, but Red X flickered out of view before she had the chance to slam him against the wall.

She spun around, eyes straining in the dimness to see where he was—

And by then he had placed his hands on the back of her head, crushing his lips to hers, and suddenly his mouth was moving in strange and unfamiliar ways against her own, and his body was warm, so warm. All Raven could do was wonder why she was so dizzy all of a sudden and why was she clinging to his shoulders like she was actually enjoying this, and who was this strange girl that was fiercely kissing him back as if she was actually attracted to him?

It could have been a second or a minute or a whole day later when she finally placed both hands on his chest and shoved him away, but all he did was give her a smug little smile.

"Did you enjoy that, Rae-babe?"

She slapped him.

It didn't do much.

It didn't do anything, actually. All he did was smile a little wider.

She was shaking—from fury, from shock…and then there was the tiny, long-buried corner of her mind that was quietly elated. Which might have been the actual reason for her quivering shoulders.

"You kissed me," she said numbly, blankly. Trying the words on for size.

"Yup."

"Why?"

She heard his low, raspy chuckle from somewhere to the left of her. "Because, my dear, when a male is faced with a very attractive female, certain hormones are released in the male's brain and the male finds himself suddenly arous—"

"Stop."

Raven closed her eyes, breath ragged in her chest.

He had kissed her. She had kissed him.

It was too much. Too much to think about, to much to try to _not_ think about, too much to replay over and over again in her mind until she had sucked every ounce of meaning from every word they had uttered…

Finally she let out all the breath she didn't realize she had been holding. "Go away, X," she sighed, and her voice just sounded tired.

In a beyond-rare moment of compassion, he seemed to understand that she had been pushed too far and too fast tonight and anything else would drive her over the edge. "Gotcha, Rae-rae." He winked. "Until tomorrow evening, then." Without waiting for a reply, he snatched her hand and kissed it, startlingly softly for someone so reckless.

He was gone in an instant—flickering out of sight, leaving no trace behind—but Raven felt his presence linger on in the room, like the spot on her hand where his lips had touched, which somehow stayed warm even as she crossed to the window and let the cool night air caress her face. She stared out across the city, eyes wandering over the sparse, twinkling lights of people going to bed far too late, and tried to decide what she was feeling. But that was too hard, so instead she looked down to the warm spot on her hand, wondering if the press of his mouth had changed it somehow—and then she saw it.

A necklace.

From him.

For her.

It was a simple thing, really, but maybe that was what made it so lovely. A small, perfect sphere. Blood red—the exact color of the focus stone in her forehead. Hanging from a plain black cord. Heavy, when she weighed it in her hand, and still warm from his skin. And somehow, subtly, it seemed to suck in all of the light from the dim room and release it in a wave of pure beauty.

It was…stunning.

Raven looked at the necklace, which he had so cleverly slipped into her hand, and wondered what made this one gem so wonderful when she despised all others. What set it apart? What made it special; what made it unique? What made her want to look and look and look at it until she had memorized every detail of its loveliness? What strange force made her tie it around her neck? And why was she suddenly smiling, with just one tiny corner of her mouth?

Suddenly exhausted and more confused than she had ever been in her entire life, she closed her eyes and sank onto the bed, but the skin of her lips and the back of her hand seemed to be quietly on fire as they radiated heat from Red X's touch.

There was too much to think of, too much to wonder about. Too much for one night.

_It can wait, _Raven decided, _if only to save me from insanity. It can all wait. At least until morning._

She was almost asleep when she remembered that she could ask him everything she wondered the next night. There was no guarantee, of course, that he would give her any answers, or that she would feel less confused, or that he would even bother telling her why he had picked _her, _of all people.

But still.

She had a kiss.

She had a necklace.

And Raven had never been one to push fate.

"Tomorrow evening?" she murmured sleepily to herself, and buried her head in the pillow so her next words were muffled.

But maybe—just maybe—he could hear her anyway.

"It's a date."

--

**WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS. :O**


	2. Queen

**I'm so tired that I can't think straight. So if this doesn't make any sense at all, or it fell flat like the last one, I'm really sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me lately.**

**EDIT: I am officially going to stop being so negative. So you know what? I actually _like_ this chapter. Hah.  
**

**Well...I liked it after I posted it, read it a bajillion times, and edited it...a lot...:D**

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**Prompt #2: Queen**

"I hate gin," Jinx mumbled, just loud enough for Wally to hear her. She frowned down at his battered kitchen table, which was covered in messy piles of cards, and wondered how long they had been playing.

Long enough for her to be bored out of her skull.

Long enough for her stomach to be complaining of malnutrition.

Long enough for Wally to rack up twenty-seven wins to her meager four.

There was a challenging, if flirtatious, glint in Wally's eyes as he rifled through his fan of cards, looking for one to play. "It's better than solitaire, isn't it? You used to play that a lot before I introduced you to the finer mechanisms of gin."

Jinx sighed and shuffled through her cards again, looking for something to throw down onto the discard pile. "Not really. It's pointless. And complicated."

Wally smirked. His devilish charm took her breath away, although she wouldn't admit it even if threatened at knifepoint. "Would you rather be drawing unicorns instead?"

Jinx's face heated abruptly, but she said nothing. She gave crap to him and he jazzed her back. It was an unspoken rule that neither could complain about the other's behavior.

But that didn't mean she couldn't get pissed anyway.

Jinx shuffled through her cards for a minute or two more, and then gave up. "There's nothing for me to put down," she complained, and threw the cards face down on the table. She huffed and buried her head in her arms, bored out of her mind. Wally reached over her forearms and rifled through her cards.

"Oh, here. Put down the queen of hearts."

She scowled. "I don't want to."

His achingly blue eyes were laughing silently at her. "But you don't have a meld for it. Seriously. Just put it down."

"What if I don't _want_ to?" she hissed, uncommonly vehemently. She snatched her cards back. "Isn't it cheating to look at my hand anyway?"

Wally backed off. "Okay. Whatever. Don't put it down."

Jinx scowled and looked at her cards again, more to avoid looking at Wally than to consider her options again. There was another awkward minute of silence before she gave up again and threw the queen of hearts down on the discard pile.

"Thank you." Wally smiled, and it was like the sun breaking over the horizon after the long, cold night.

_What. The. Hell._

_I am comparing Wally's smile to the sunrise._

_Oh, Christ on a cracker._

She scowled, irritated with both the complicated game and her own stupid mind. "Can we just have dinner or something? I've been your freaking prisoner of card games for like three hours."

"It's all practice for when you become my love slave, sweetheart." Wally smirked at his own wit.

Jinx rolled her eyes and got up to rummage around the refrigerator. "Whatever. Feel free to rejoice in the fact that the only way you could get a girl is through unlawful captivity." She managed to scarf down a banana and half of a Twinkie before Wally pulled her over to the kitchen table again.

"Hey!" She swatted at his arm, more than a little angry. "I'm eating."

He pried the last bite of Twinkie from her fingers and popped it in his mouth. "Not anymore," he laughed. Then, seeing the tell-tale irritation in her eyes, he rearranged his features into a remorseful face and sighed. "Sorry. Jeez. Take it easy."

They were quiet for a minute or two, Jinx seething inwardly.

A thought came to her uneasily. _Why? Why am I always so angry?_

She knew the answer. She had always known it.

To be honest, she hadn't even wanted the Twinkie. But when he took it, and his hand brushed across hers, and it sent that bolt of lightning through her veins like it always did…She was confused. So she let anger take over. Because it was easier to get mad at Wally than to allow herself to feel anything for him.

Anger eclipsed all emotion. Even when his beauty took her breath away.

Finally Wally stirred and gave her a little smile. "Finish this last round?" he asked her hopefully, and when she succeeded in fighting to keep the blank mask over her face, he nudged her playfully. "Please. One more game. For me."

_For me. _

_Please. Do it for me._

Jinx wondered if she would ever have enough anger to shadow all that she felt for him.

_It's one card game, _she told herself. _It's not freaking matrimony._

Her conscience was quietly elated at even the thought.

"Fine," she sighed. "I'll finish this one game."

Wally beamed and kissed her cheek, obviously delighted.

The kiss was nothing. A gesture of friendship. An expression of happiness.

But Jinx had to clench her fists and look down at the table to keep the neutral look on her face. Her stomach was doing stupid-ass cartwheels and backflips. She was seeing freaking rainbows.

For Wally.

Her only friend.

_Wally._

He shuffled his cards, and Jinx looked up against her will. Just to glance at him.

And he was so beautiful. So devastatingly beautiful.

To distract herself, Jinx looked back down at her own hand of cards, laying one down on the discard pile, picking another up and adding it to her hand—and a thought came to her, a thought that gave her a painful little jolt.

She suddenly wished she had her queen of hearts back.

Because, she realized, Wally was the kind of boy who could let go of his own heart without a thought.

But Jinx was the kind of girl who was always holding it back.


	3. Masquerade

**Discovered a new trick for getting rid of writer's block: smelling stuff. No, seriously. I did research. Smell is actually the most potent sense in your body for remembering specific occasions and feelings and thoughts. (Like, for example, I smelled formaldehyde the other day and instantly remembered the time in 5****th**** grade when my friend Jackie and I dissected lamb's brains in class. We ended up with brain tissue splattered all over us and reeked of organic materials for days. Ah, good times.)**

**So for this entire shindig, which took approximately fifteen minutes, I sat down with these yummy vanilla scented candles my friend Brooke gave me one birthday. And lo and behold! This little drabble pops up. Yay!**

**Open for consideration on who you think it's about, though it's really quite obvious. :)**

…**I really hope I don't start smelling psychedelic mushrooms next. D: **

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**Prompt #3: Masquerade**

She's always telling me to loosen up.

_Relax, _she says. _Calm your body._

She always did give good advice.

Sometimes she just gives me that look, that one that tells me I'm making a fool out of myself, and I know I should probably shut up and sit down before I have a hernia.

Once she even came into my room while I was working, carrying a loaded tray with tea and biscotti. Like she knew I was annoyed even before I did. And she just sat there, on the floor, while I paced and paced and paced until my legs were shaking and my vision was clouded with a sea of red frustration. And then she made me sit and calm myself until I could think again. So we sat, and for a while our minds just kind of bounced around—or maybe mine was bouncing, or maybe just hers, or maybe they were both bouncing and colliding in midair and then bouncing back into our own respective brains—and her silence was calming in a way I had never known before.

And then, when she was sure I was myself again, we drank the tea she brought. She talked. And I laughed.

I _laughed._

While I was _working._

And there was this one, single time, just a random afternoon, when she asked me why I was hiding behind a mask. It only took a second or two for her to ask, but afterwards I think time stretched on and on and on, spanning years of awkward silences and eons of unanswered questions.

So I told her my scripted answer, the one I no longer have to think about, the one that comes almost unbidden to my mouth: _I hide behind a mask because there are people—there are secrets, identities—that I need to protect._

And even though I looked away from her a split second after I said it, I saw the well-disguised hurt deep inside her eyes.

She didn't say anything after that, just withdrew into one of her typical silences, and later I wondered if I was forgiven, even though I knew I probably wasn't.

Still—it left me wondering. Questioning. Doubting myself. Something I hate to think about and hate even more to do. There's no room in my mind for uncertainty. Every breath, every movement, every thought…it's all calculated, analyzed, evaluated. But I calculate quickly, analyze instinctively. I am swift, relentless, and unreserved in judgment.

I have to be.

But sometimes the doubt steals in, slipping between the tight bands I've wrapped around my soul. _Am I lonely? _I wonder. _Am I lost in this solitary game of mine? Have I stumbled so deeply into the masquerade that I am now ensnared? Will I ever find my way out?_

It's times like these when the mask that shields everything—more than just my face: my past, my present, my secrets, my thoughts—suddenly becomes heavier than just bio-plastic and microfilaments. Suddenly it's suffocating me. Weighing me down. Shackling me to my own world, when all I want is to become lost in someone else's.

It's times like these when I silently cry out to her, when I know I will break under the strain, when I am struggling with every dark thought that lashes my mind: _Help me. Save me. Rescue me from myself._

But for all her empathy, she never seems to hear.

And it's times like these that I wonder if she, too, is lost in the masquerade.

--

**So, who do _you_ think the narrator was? Kid Flash? Robin? Jericho? Speedy? And who do you think 'she' was? Jinx? Starfire? Raven? Argent? Someone else?  
**

**Let me know...I'm really quite curious.**


	4. Pants

**These candles are starting to give me a headache now…:O Maybe I should switch to some other fantabulously delicious scent. Any opinions on what I should smell next to provoke inspiration and motivation? (Hah! That sounds like an ad.)**

**I had fun with this. :) Should've made it longer.**

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**Prompt #4: Pants**

Cyborg didn't know anyone else who wore pants like Bee did.

All the other Titan girls wore skirts—tiny little scraps of fabric, revealing long, lean legs and enough skin to torture a guy's imagination for hours. Sure, they were pretty, and sure, he (and the other guy Titans) enjoyed the view. But after a while, they all started to look the same. After a while, the skirt thing kind of got old. After a while, a change of scenery started looking pretty good.

And that was where Bee came in.

Sure, her pants were tiny, too. Long, formfitting sheaths of Spandex: that was Bee. And the attitude, the style…that was Bee too. But what really spoke volumes about her was the way that _she_ wore the clothes, instead of the clothes wearing her.

Like…Kole, for example. Sure, she was cute, with her starched little skirt and wildly bobbing antennae, but sometimes she was kinda lost in all the fabric. Or Kitten, who was drowning spectacularly in too many shades of pink.

They didn't radiate confidence like Bee. Because Bee found her look, owned her look, and knew how to broadcast the fact without ever saying a word.

Bee's pants weren't something Cyborg thought about often…well, maybe a little more than he admitted. Sometimes when he had trouble falling asleep. Or was blanking out in the middle of one of Rob's lectures. Or when he was totally annihilating Beast Boy on the PS3 and he could afford to space out for a couple minutes.

Maybe it was just because they were superheroes. After all, most of the Titans wore their fair share of Spandex. And Spandex had the interesting ability to cling to every curve on a girl's legs (though it was less than flattering for the guys). So it wasn't really his fault that he appreciated her legs. Pants. Whatever.

It wasn't like he dreamed about her pants or anything (because he really didn't do that often). Or had fantasies about them (only three or four times, when his self-control was drastically low). Or mentioned them in everyday conversation (which, admittedly, happened once, but he was a little tipsy so he couldn't take full responsibility).

Cyborg couldn't help it. The girl had style.

And a really nice pair of pants.


	5. Words

**I'm ****sooo**** tired…but I keep writing…it's weird…**

**My brain isn't making sense, so if this doesn't make sense, then…um…whoops. Hehe. :) **

**My first Robin/Starfire. Hopefully the next time these two get together in my fics, they'll be a bit happier. **

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**Prompt #5: Words**

His words hurt her more than any physical blow.

The sound of them—rushing through the silence—is almost more than she can stand. There's a swish, a crack, a sharp stinging pain along her heart…almost like the passage of a whip through the thick air. She wonders why he hurts her like this, even when she knows he isn't trying to.

Sometimes, when his voice has that particular edge of anger, she sees something underneath. Something that glimmers with the fervor of desperation and burns with the intensity of fear. So she looks deeper, and then she sees it—or maybe she hears it.

A whisper.

It doesn't matter that he's screaming—she hears something softer, something sweeter. But as soon as she strains to hear it, it's gone. So she tries to keep herself calm, even when she wants to scream back at him, scream about how unfair it is for her to be the one who listens. And she tries to block out the angry words so she can hear the faint undertone, the one that seems to whisper, _I love you. I will never hurt you._

And as soon as she's heard it, she relaxes, at least for a moment. Because he says he loves her, and that's good—that's great. She loves him too. Even if she could never admit to it, because she doesn't want to scare him away; because she doesn't want to lose him.

They love each other, but they're mute to the fact. And so there's a gap between them.

He won't admit it either—but there's the magnetic attraction, the thing that pulls them close, that sucks them in. They're both scared; so scared. They're scared of losing each other. They're scared of running out of time. They're scared for each other and they're scared for themselves and they want to leap into the gap and force it closed and never have to think about it again.

But they're even more scared that if they took the time to leap, the other wouldn't be there to break their fall.

He's scared of how she affects him. He's afraid that if he draws her too close, it will be the end of everything he knows. So the words keep coming, clawing their way out of his mouth and invading the only good thing in his entire world.

The words keep them apart. And even though that should reassure him, all he feels is emptiness.

She wonders if silence will close the gap between them—maybe, just maybe, if they took the time to be still and quiet, and just listened to the other, maybe it would heal them both. But his words keep getting in the way, building up and up and up until they fall, like a house of cards, and crush her beneath them.

It's too much for her—too much to think about. She tries to ignore it and concentrate on the glimmer beneath his harsh façade, the tiny spark that keeps her hoping, keeps her loving.

Both of them are locked in their silent battles—the only thing silent, when everything around them is noise. It's a sad irony that despite the way words are tearing them apart, words are the only thing that can heal them now.

And it's too bad neither of them knows the right words to say.


	6. Storm

**Can't seem to get away from Raven's point of view. Aaaaargh.**

**So, yeah, a more traditional Raven-beating-herself-up-over-things-she-can't-change sort of drabble. I really need to broaden my views on this one. **

**Just because it's pretty vague, this is set right before The End. Or maybe The Prophecy. Can't remember which.**

**Thanks for all of your fragrance suggestions (and all the lovely reviews)! Tenisgal456's suggestion of warm homemade chocolate chip cookies and Sylver's idea of an ocean breeze were lovely. Thanks oodles! I'm going to go out and buy some diffusers now. :)**

**Oh! Almost forgot! There was an amazing storm this evening, which inspired this chapter. Absolutely beautiful. We were grilling steak on the back porch and then _whoosh! _These winds came whipping through. Branches were cracking from the trees and raining down on us. So what did I do? I made tea. And then stood out there, in the midst of the storm, and watched it. Haha.  
**

**I've bored you long enough! Enjoy, dahlings! And just to torture you, after this kind of boring drabble will be a kind of cool 7-chapter sequence…but you'll see what I mean when I post them. :)**

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**Prompt #6: Storm**

The rooftop was open to the storm, and Raven was glad.

She spread her arms wide and tipped her face up towards the angry sky. The clouds were white but the air was very dark, and she kind of liked the strange, unearthly light. She liked the hissing sound the rain made as it sheeted down from the sky, and she liked the way the thunder made the teeth rattle in her head.

It suited her mood: dark, primal, and absolutely ferocious.

She wanted this monsoon to erase her thoughts. She didn't want to wonder about anything. She didn't want to speculate on the whats or the hows (she already knew when and where—but that didn't really make it any better).

So Raven let herself stand in the rain, even as the lightning ventured close and the wind became dangerous.

A thought flickered into her head unbidden, try as she did to suppress it:

Maybe this downpour was from inside of her. Maybe she was opening up her soul, unleashing every secret she had never wanted to remember, and the sheer force of it turned into a tempest.

It was a strange thought.

And yet…It seemed right, to lay herself bare. It seemed right, to stop wondering. It seemed right, to cease existing, and to just succumb.

Without really knowing what she was doing, Raven tore the cloak from her neck and dropped it, soaked and heavy, to the ground. Rain lashed her bare shoulders, but her conscience shrank to just a tiny pinpoint of light, and then it disappeared entirely.

It felt right, to open herself up to the sky—so Raven closed her eyes, and succumbed.

The storm battered her body: she didn't realize she was being forced into a kneeling position until the frigid metal of the floor pressed into her knees. Screaming winds tore at her arms and legs, batting her around like a bear as it mauls its victim. The lightning seared her eyes; the thunder shook her bones. Rain, cold and constant, beat a tattoo into her face as she tilted it up into the storm.

For how long she was pummeled by the storm, she couldn't say—every second blurred into another. It could have been minutes, hours, days. Nothing existed outside of the torrent. Every shred of her individuality was stripped away by the raw force of wind and water.

She ceased to be Raven.

She became part of the storm.

And to her immense disappointment, when the storm started to fade, it didn't take her with it.

Her conscience began to expand again, and thoughts filled her head in lazy spirals. Raven opened her eyes, just a shred, and blinked raindrops away from her eyelashes. The rain was less dangerous now—merely falling, instead of lashing. She sighed. Maybe she should get up and dry off before she caught pneumonia.

But it was so much easier just to keep kneeling there on the rooftop. So she stayed.

After a while, her brain waves stopped flatlining and began to remind her of why she was up there in the first place. Raven listlessly wished the rain would start gushing again, if only to drain her thoughts away. But, if anything, it merely slowed.

She didn't want to have to think.

She really, _really_ didn't want to have to think.

But unfortunately, the one person who would force her to came up the stairs at that very moment, and he wasn't about to let her off the hook.

"Raven? What are you doing up here?"

Raven shifted on her knees to avoid talking to him for a second, noticing vaguely that her legs had fallen asleep. "Thinking," she eventually murmured, wondering if he was empathetic enough to pick up on her tangled emotions and leave her alone. And then she wondered if he was empathetic enough to know that she was lying to him.

"But it was pouring."

Nope. Not even a blip on his internal lie detector. He really needed to sharpen up a little bit.

She nodded and looked over to Jump City, wondering if the civilians there would take in a half-demon as one of their own. Robin knelt down beside her, his boots squeaking on the metal floor. "Is everything okay?" His voice, always serious, had a darker undertone to it.

"No, not really."

There was no sense in lying to him about that part. He'd know soon enough. They all would.

"Oh."

Raven closed her eyes again, wishing he would just leave her alone, and at the same time wanting to confide in him. At least someone would know. Why shouldn't it be Robin? He was her best friend. Why shouldn't she tell him?

Because she was a coward, that was why. Because she was just a little girl, forever afraid of her daddy and what he would do when he got angry.

They were quiet for a long time, and the rain eventually slowed, then stopped. Robin ran a hand through his hair and little water droplets dripped down the back of his neck. He stood up and offered a hand to her, and even though she didn't want to move, Raven pulled herself up. All of the blood rushed to her head and she staggered into him dizzily.

"You okay?" He slung her arm around his shoulder, half-carrying her back towards the stairs.

She nodded and shrugged at the same time. As the ferocity of the storm died away, so did her emotions, and suddenly all she felt was tired. Every bone in her body ached from the storm batting her around, and she was drained to her very core. She leaned heavily against Robin as they made their way to the trap door.

"The storm ended," he remarked lightly, as if trying to ease the tension between them.

Something in his words made her stop. Raven looked at him, bedraggled from the rain. She felt a mirthless laugh bubble up inside of her. And when she spoke, her voice suddenly had the metallic quality of Slade in it: cold, and calculating, and desperate, in a way.

Raven shook her head slowly and tottered down the steps with him, smothering the weird, tittery laughter that threatened to overwhelm her.

"Oh no, Robin. The storm is only beginning."


	7. Soft

**FLLLLLLLLUUUUUUUUUUUUUFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.**

**Fluffiest thing I've ever written. And here's a weird, but true, kind of thing: Fluff's actually kind of fun. :)**

**Typed up on a whim after I saw a really cool Starfire picture. So, it's a little choppy. I think all the scent from my candles has been inhaled...can you wear out candles if you never even lit them?**

**Here's the happy Robin/Starfire I promised a couple chapters ago. A little sooner than you expected, probably. But I'd rather have my Christmas presents sooner than later, so I fully believe in giving people things earlier than they anticipated.**

**The cool seven-chapter sequence is coming up right after this drabble/oneshot type thing. I already have an idea for the fifth chapter. Here's a hint: more happy Robin/Starfire. :D**

**But the rest of the seven, you ask? The rest could very well be more traditional Seraephina angst…(evil laughter)**

**Enjoy, dahlings! You guys are awesome!**

**--**

**Prompt #7: Soft **

When you first looked at a girl like Starfire, you'd think everything about her was soft.

You see the long, dramatically red hair first, and it looks so velvety that it makes you want to touch it. Don't ask me why. Sometimes when I look at it, it's like that hair is absorbing all of the sunlight in the Tower and then _glowing_ with it_._ It's all I can do, to not just whip off my gloves and bury my hands in it. It looks so soft. And clean. And shiny. And it smells really, really good—like those Zorkaberries she fed to Silkie once.

Then you see her skin, and that's almost worse than her hair. It's that awesome orangey-tan color and so perfectly sun-drenched that it just begs to be commercialized. Once I saw her without her boots on, and I almost choked. Really. (But, then again, I was being force-fed Beast Boy's homemade tofu flan, so it might not have been only her fault.) Her legs are fantastic. 'Long and lean', that's what Raven calls them. Almost like she's been reading Cosmo under the covers at night. But really—her legs are unbelievable. They're so long, so tan, so curvy, so soft, so _smooth…_I don't know what it is, but I kind of lose my mind around those legs.

And then, if you really pay attention to her, you'll see her lips. They go sort of unnoticed, I guess, maybe because her eyes are so spectacular. But if you do get past the bottle-green of her eyes and wander past her (admittedly, very cute) nose, then you'll see them. They're very full (the bottom one is so much bigger than the top), very soft, and this perfect pale pink. Even when she experiments with all of her makeup from the mall, she never does anything to her lips. I'm glad about that. When I kiss her in my imagination, it gets so much harder when there's lipstick smeared all over my face.

(Oh, God. I did not just say that.)

(I think I did.)

But anyway…when you look at Starfire, just fleetingly, you'll notice that everything about her is soft.

Really, it's not. It's not like that at all.

She wears metal all over her body, believe it or not. The metal cuff on her arm. The metal neck brace. Her boots are steel-toed. She has metal sheaths on her forearms and a metal belt around her (luscious) hips. I think it's all heavier than she lets on, but compared to her massive strength, it must not be that much of a trouble.

But it goes deeper than just what she looks like, and it's more than just what she wears.

The first time I saw Starfire, she was completely encased in this awful suit. Her arms were elbow-deep in this weird alien handcuff kind of thing, and every inch of her body was covered in some kind of restraint. When she screamed at me, her voice was harsh and sharp as razors and grated on my ears. When she kissed me, her lips held nothing but contempt. I could have been kissing a concrete wall.

Everything about her was hard.

It took everyone a while, to really get to know her. To really trust her. But not me. I'm not sure if it was the aftershock of that (pretty lame, I'll admit) kiss, or the fact that I had glimpsed a side of her that not many people had seen, or maybe we just had some kind of natural magnetism towards each other. But we just kind of _clicked._ We got each other. We didn't feel the need to talk all the time, even though we did anyway. The hard shell sort of faded away. I saw her softer side. And that, I think, is when I started to fall for her.

I know I started to like her right after she quit trying to beat me up. I'm just trying to figure out the exact moment when I stopped just lusting after her in my typical seventeen-year-old-boy kind of way, and when I started…_loving_ her.

It's insane. It's stupid. It's kind of awkward.

But I think I do. Love her, I mean.

I've seen so many different sides of her now. Furious, that first time we met. Sad, when she thought we were replacing her with Blackfire. Confused, when we were all trying to explain to her that mint frosting and banana slices aren't actually pizza toppings. Hopeful, when she wanted Raven to go shopping with her. And happy. I've seen her happy so, so many times, and yet I always want to smile back at her, no matter how I feel.

I've seen her when she's sweet and soft. I've seen her when she's hard and strong.

And even though I know she's the strongest, toughest, fiercest person I know, even though I love her no matter what mood she's in, even though I know she's capable of beating me up no matter how she feels…

I think I love her the most when she's just being Starfire.


	8. Red

**As you'll see in a moment, this little chapter makes me very, very sad. But I promise that the next one will be happier. Much happier. So if you can stay strong through this one, the next will be quite joyful.**

**I tell you this because this is one of those dreaded deathfics. But the inspiration hit me, and who am I to ignore inspiration?**

**I will, once again, let you decide who you think this is about. Speedy? Jinx? Argent? Raven? Beast Boy? Robin? Starfire? Cyborg? Go ahead. Think outside of the box. I DARE you. :)**

**And now I'm going to go cry. And mope around for a bit. And then tell myself to take it like a man. Girl. And then wipe away my tears and start on the more joyful second chapter, which will be entitled 'Orange', because guess what? It's a rainbow-themed seven chapters! Yay!**

**So here's 'Red'. I am posting it, and I am very afraid of it, and I hope you lovely reviewers are not afraid of me. Because I love you dearly. Just, you know, not in that way. :)**

**With tearful, review-adoring love,**

**Seraephina**

**--**

**Prompt #8: Red **

Red.

A beautiful color, supposedly. Strong. Vivid. The color of passion. The color of good wine.

The color of roses.

The color of blood.

She'd had a fairytale view of roses once. Rich red color. Given to a woman by their true love. A symbol of happiness.

She'd had a fairytale view of blood as well. The same deep red as a rose. Symbolizing pain, but pain that could quickly be soothed and forgotten. A symbol of healing.

Red roses. Red blood.

She'd thought that exact, bloody color of red was beautiful. She'd thought roses were beautiful, too. But not anymore. Not now, when roses just reminded her of the casket, and not now, when blood just reminded her of death.

Death wasn't beautiful. And because they were intertwined, neither were roses. What stole the beauty away was the fact that death was staring her in the face—ironically, in the _shape_ of a face.

She hated irony at that moment. Hated it passionately.

Death, at that moment, was closed eyelids, hiding the deeply colored eyes from seeing their own funeral. Too-pale skin, a color that spoke softly of blood replaced by chemicals, fluids designed to hide the stench of the slowly rotting flesh. Fingernails that had faded from soft pink to a stark white. Lips that were arranged just-so, instead of their usual careless smile or studious frown. A stiff, crisp black tux, one that had been insisted upon because the body underneath was shredded to pieces and not fit for the tabloids to see.

Death, at that moment, was also the roses draped around the casket. Heaps of roses. Masses of roses. Every one colored with that gut-wrenching, bloody shade of red, the shade that had also been insisted upon because it was labeled as 'poetic'.

Death wasn't beautiful to her in that moment. Roses weren't beautiful, either. Her fairy tale thoughts had been demolished.

The same fairytale thoughts had always wondered about that metaphor from the romance novels: the one where, in a moment of betrayal or grief, one lover's heart is ripped from the chest, torn to pieces, and tossed into a blender with the dial set to 'obliterate'.

Wondering was bitter in her mouth when she finally realized the sheer accuracy of the statement. And she would have given anything—anything at all—to wash the bitter taste away.

She would have given more to have her old thoughts back.

She wanted her naivety back.

She wanted her fairy tales back.

She didn't want the new thoughts, the ones that were jaded, veterans of heartbreak, and yet still screaming with the rawness of the fresh pain.

She didn't want the pain either, but it had curled up in her chest anyway. It had made its nest. It had dug its sharp little teeth into her heart until she was forced to harden it. And still it stayed—hurting enough so that she carried a constant ache around with her, and cutting so exquisitely that each fresh wave of pain was like the first.

The pain was there to stay.

And so were the new thoughts.

But the new thoughts were painful, and she couldn't deal with pain, not right now. Not when he was laying in a shiny black casket, one that he would have hated anyway because it was so pretentious. Not when he was surrounded by masses of blood-red roses, which he would have laughed at because he said flowers were for chicks. Not when she was wearing a black dress she didn't like and not when eye makeup was streaming down her face in soot-colored swirls and not when there were still gashes on her arms from the brief, horrific minutes before he came and saved the day. Not when each pound of her heart reminded her of both the pain nestled inside, and the knowledge that his saving her had ended his own life.

Not when she was spinning, wheeling away from the seat on the pew with the dusty purple cushion, ignoring the gasps and photographic clicks when she fell to her knees. Not when she was staggering up, soul sucked out of her body from the sheer hatred of death, running away from it all and tripping on the heels she had never wanted to wear.

And certainly not when his sightless eyes were smoldering on her back as if he could still see even beyond death, when she was running and running and running even though she couldn't escape any of it, when her entire vision was a sea of red the particular shade of his blood, when she could still imagine it gushing from between her fingers as she implored him to fight, to fight, damnit, to not just give up and die.

Each pound of her heart sent pain gnawing away at her chest. Each labored breath seemed to sear at her lungs like the knife must have seared his. And each stride of her stiletto-clad feet just reminded her that though she could run—away from his funeral, away from his grave—she could never escape, because that particular shade of red would follow her everywhere.

And she would have given away her soul for that red to just be beautiful again.


	9. Orange

**Writer's block sucks. D:**

**But anyway…**

**I have big news, people. HUGE news, in fact. News so big that it wouldn't fit in an Author's Note unless you wanted to read 7,000 words of me screaming in delight about it. So that's why I put it in my profile.**

**After you read this, go check out the information on my profile. It's at the top. Bolded. Underlined. All caps. You can't miss it. And, you know, since I'm shamelessly and flagrantly advertising in this author's note anyway, why don't you go vote in the poll after this as well? xD**

**-- **

**Prompt #9: Orange**

The rocking of the ferry matched her queasy stomach.

Kid Flash squeezed her hand reassuringly, and she was too sick to her stomach to yank her hand away. _Even if it does feel good,_ she thought absently, before mentally slapping her mind. _No. It does _not_ feel good. It is a silly and overrated gesture of comfort. _

"Are you nervous about meeting them?" He traced a swirl on the back of her hand with his thumb, and she had to concentrate to keep her expression frustrated. Frustration was good. It was understandable. Anxiety? That was like tossing a meaty bone to a starving dog—no one ever cut you any slack when you were scared.

Jinx frowned slightly. "No." But when she saw his mouth twitch at the corners, just a little, she sighed. There was no point giving him BS. He was just too damn smart to fall for it. She scuffed her toe on the ground and scowled when the rough floor scraped away part of the leather on her boot. "Yeah. A little." Then she paused. "A lot, actually."

He was too much the gentleman to call her on her fears. All he did was rummage through one of the almost-invisible pockets at the side of his suit. "Hang on, I think I have something…in here…somewhere…" He trailed off, scrabbling around in his pocket, and Jinx couldn't help but admire the way his muscles rippled along his shoulders.

Another mental slap. That was the fifth time today, and it was only half past ten. In another hour her brain was going to look like the victim of one of those girly catfights from junior high.

Kid Flash made a triumphant little noise and pulled out a slightly smashed stick of gum. The wrapping was ragged and there was a bit of pocket lint sticking to one corner, but he looked pleased anyway. "Here. Gum. It helps with nerves."

She arched an eyebrow, just a little, but accepted the gum from him anyway. "Gee, thanks. I've always wanted a stick of gum for Christmas."

He smirked. "Good, because I didn't bother buying you anything else." She swatted at his arm and he responded by ruffling her hair. He knew she hated that.

"Watch it, buddy!" she snapped, and patted her cotton candy-pink mane back into place. "I have to impress these people."

And with that, Jinx suddenly remembered why she was standing on a ferry with Kid Flash.

To go meet the Titans. The _Titans._ And beg them to let her be part of the team.

Jinx did not do business meetings. She didn't do begging either. And yet somehow she was standing shakily on a ferry that was towing her across the bay, Kid Flash by her side, dressed in a skirt she didn't like and a blouse that made her look like a nun, waiting to do both of these things in front of the Titan's leader.

"Oh, God," she mumbled, suddenly feeling even more sick to her stomach. "I have to _impress_ these people. I have to go impress the Titans. My mortal enemies."

No, of course she wasn't nervous.

Kid Flash looked pained. "Teammates, actually. We might be working with them after this." Her expression must have turned alarming, because he hastened to say, "Or we might not even talk to them. Except for the annual balls and charity events and things. You know. Protocol."

To hell with looking tough. Jinx was scared out of her mind.

_They're going to hate me. Which wouldn't be too bad, really, except they're my lifelines. I have nothing besides this. Who's going to take in a reformed criminal with a track record like mine? I couldn't get a job at the crappiest restaurant in town if I had a recommendation from the president._

They were going to hate her. Seriously. They were going to open the door, laugh hysterically for a while, and slam the door in her face, and as soon as they had finished flinging the door closed they were going to wonder aloud if they broke her nose. And then they'd laugh. Again.

She'd have to move out of Wally's guest bedroom. Her pride would force her to. And then she'd have to live on the streets for a while until she eventually found a job at some dive.

A thought:

_What if I can't get a job?_

She wasn't going back to crime. It wasn't worth it. She wasn't going back to puking her guts out every time she laid a finger on someone else's jewelry.

She'd need a fake ID, at the very least. Some hair dye as well, and maybe colored contacts. Hell, her face had been plastered onto so many "Wanted" notices over the past few years that she'd probably need plastic surgery.

It gave her a pang. She didn't want to lose this face. It reminded her of her mother's.

Another pang. She didn't want to get plastic surgery. The hospital bills alone would require pawning off a stolen Rolex, and Rolexes were pretty scarce in Jump.

"Hey, Jinx?"

Kid Flash nudged her, and she opened eyes she didn't remember closing.

They were at the drop-off point. They were going to make her get off. Actually _get off._ At the foot of Titan's Tower. And then they were going to motor away. And leave her.

At _Titan's Tower._

She was going to be sick.

Kid Flash put a hand at the small of her back and gently led her to the door of the ferry. As they passed the driver's seat, Jinx had a wild idea of punching the overweight man idly tapping the wheel, tying him up somewhere, and hijacking the ferry. She could probably do it. Knock the security guards unconscious, push Flash off the boat and maybe break the driver's nose to shut him up. He looked like a glass jaw anyway.

She could definitely do it—if she wasn't on her way to repenting her sins and converting to the light side.

And maybe if Wally didn't have an iron grip on her waist—like he knew exactly what she was thinking, and had already slapped three plans together for putting her out of commission if she tried anything stupid.

The boy had a brain. Even if he didn't act like he did all the time.

Suddenly Wally had guided her down the gangplank, and they were both blinking in the bright winter sunlight. She shivered and Wally wrapped an arm around her waist. She would have complained if he hadn't been so _warm._ Like he had just shoved his arm into the microwave.

"I run at a toasty one-oh-one degrees in the winter," Kid Flash said easily, as if her mind was a movie and he just happened to have a VCR player in his brain.

"Stop reading my mind," she snapped, even though she knew that was the Dark One's deal and not his.

"I think you're confusing me with Raven, babe." He winked at her, all devilish charm and effortless charisma. "It's an easy mistake. We look oh-so-similar, don't you think? I think it's the hair."

"I told you to _stop it_, twinkle toes," Jinx hissed, but before she could try to put together some kind of scathing comeback, they were standing at the front door to the Titan's place, and then all the words evaporated from her mind like water in the sun.

Because they were there.

Standing at the foot of the most honor-bound building in Jump.

Jinx felt her stomach churn angrily, and if she had been able to force anything down at breakfast, she probably would have puked it out right there. She distantly heard Kid Flash chattering into her ear and vaguely felt him rubbing her back soothingly, but it was all kind of blurry in the face of her terror.

"Hey, Jinx?"

She pulled herself back to reality from a stupor so deep that it was almost _sticky_. "Wha—?"

"I said, you might want to start chewing that gum now."

She looked up at Kid Flash, feeling all the blood drain from her face, and saw him glance down at her worriedly. Something about the intense blue of his eyes made her flush—which made her flush even harder, because she didn't know _why_ she was flushing. Vicious cycle.

"It's going to be fine," he soothed, and Jinx knew it was only his arm around her waist that was keeping her anchored to this moment in time. She felt a wave of terror rise up in her—whirling first in her stomach, then flooding her chest and finally drowning every word in her throat. She squeezed the stick of gum in her sweating hands, tighter and tighter, like she could force the terror out of her body and inject it into something different.

"Stop ruining a perfectly good piece of gum, Jinx," Wally reprimanded. "Just chew the thing already." He took it from her white-knuckled grasp, unwrapped it, and somehow slipped it between her lips.

The brush of his fingers against her mouth made her head spin. She felt dizzy for a second and wanted to touch her lips, to see if they were actually tingling or if it was just her brain. But then her tongue registered the flavor of the gum, and she made a disgusted face.

"Ew. It's orange." Jinx wrinkled her nose.

Kid Flash looked confused and a little skeptical. "You don't like it? What kind of person doesn't like orange?"

"Ugh. It's too sweet. Real citrus doesn't taste like it's been pumped full of eleven tablespoons of fructose."

There was a strange sort of glimmer in Wally's eyes, but it flickered in and out of sight too quickly for her to label it. He shrugged nonchalantly. "Fine."

And before she knew what he was doing, he had tightened his grip around her waist, cradled the back of her head with his other hand, and pressed his mouth to hers.

Time slowed down, then stopped completely: spanning the time between one wave crashing to shore…

…and the next.

She felt a few things, one after the other, but they were separate: not a part of her.

There was a warm arm around her waist.

There was a soft, insistent pressure at her lips.

There was heat, everywhere: seeping between her closed eyelids, soaking through her clothes, meeting skin in a subtle electric shock.

And then nothing.

She opened eyes she didn't remember closing and found herself immediately drowning in his blue, blue stare, his eyes twinkling with silent laughter but sobered by some kind of passionate emotion she didn't quite understand—

—and then the wave broke the shore.

Reality slapped her in the face with all the force of a baseball bat.

"What the _hell_ was that for?" she demanded, pink sparks crackling along the lengths of her fingertips. There was something else, too—a warm flush across her cheeks, a cold shiver along her spine, every temperature of her body at odds with the other—but she swatted it from her mind with a mental broomstick.

He laughed, flashing brilliantly white teeth that the tabloids were so fond of photographing. "You said you didn't like orange gum."

She blinked. "What?"

Wally grinned, then blew a bubble. A very large, very _orange_ bubble. The popping sound was in time with one of her heartbeats and reminded her of exactly how hard her heart was pounding.

It took her brain a second two put two and two together. And when she ran her tongue across her teeth, tasting only the slightest ghost of orange and feeling the emptiness inside her mouth, she was at a loss for words.

Oh, he was good.

And that thought stayed with her for a very, very long time.

Jinx barely noticed when the Dark One opened the door, eyes blank but with the tiniest suggestion of a smile tugging at her lips. She didn't really register walking through the Tower to the living room, where the green changeling boy took one look at her vacant expression before bursting into a fit of giggles. She hardly remembered the meeting with Robin, the questions he asked, the answers she gave. All she was really aware of was Kid Flash's leg brushing against hers for a moment, or the way the sun caught his teeth or his eyes and she found herself lost in them. She didn't see the way Robin and Wally were exchanging smiling, secretive glances over her head, or the way Wally stayed behind to talk with him after the meeting was done. She didn't even notice Wally pointing at Raven and Robin reddening furiously.

She only really came back to life when she was standing back outside, ribs aching from a crushing hug from the alien—Starfire—with Wally beaming beside her.

"You did it, Jinx! You're part of the team!"

Jinx looked down at her hand, the one with the yellow and black communicator dangling loosely from her fingers, and smiled—just a tiny bit. Enough to quirk her lips a little. Enough to bring her back to reality just in time to catch Wally's expression.

Time slowed down again when he looked at her, another one of those strange, glimmering looks in his Prussian blue eyes that she was only beginning to identify as affection—or maybe something even bigger than that.

"Congratulations," he whispered, and he pressed his mouth to hers.

When she wound her arms around his neck and crushed her lips to his, she felt a tingle at her mouth that eventually resolved into a sweet, citrusy taste—and by that point she could only wonder at what point in her life she had started to enjoy the taste of orange.

But she knew.

And she was pretty sure he did too.

--

A few hours later, when they were sitting on his faded plaid couch watching _101 Dalmatians_ for at least the sixth time, she turned to him with a sly little smile on her face.

"Hey, Wally?"

His eyes never left the screen, absorbed in watching Cruella Devil stomp around her mansion in a fit of rage. "Hmm?"

"Can I have another piece of gum?"

He turned to her, half of his face lit by the screen and the other half dark—and then he grinned: that easy, slow-as-melting-butter smile that was the first thing she ever noticed about him. And when he leaned forward to brush her ear with his lips and murmured, "Sure," she felt those ridiculous, yet arguably delightful shivers on her spine.

Then his lips met hers and the sweet tang of orange flooded her mouth, and she just didn't bother to think anymore.

--

**Profile. Read. Poll. Vote. Go. Now. **

**:D**


	10. Yellow

**Typed up at my dad's office, with phones ringing in my ear and work-chatter floating around. So you'll forgive me if this isn't exactly my best work ever.  
**

**BB/Terra, as if it wasn't painfully obvious. :) **

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**Prompt #10: Yellow **

The first time I saw her, I thought, "Yellow."

Yellow was the color of her hair, delicate as cornsilk. Yellow was the warm glow around her clenched fists, smelling of long grass and cracked dirt and sunsets fading over mountaintops. Yellow was her thin, worn shorts, the fabric softened by time and threadbare from travel. Yellow was the flush on her skin, like the sun had soaked into her very essence and radiated from her body. Yellow was the "T" on her shirt, the one that should have stood for "Titans", but turned out to stand for "Treachery".

She intoxicated me. My dreams at night were stained golden—the sea, the sky, the earth, the wind. I could look out of the corner of my eyes and see her long blonde hair whipping around a corner, but when I ran to go look it would be nothing. I would look at things, just random things, like my shoes—and I could swear that there was a faint tint of yellow to the purple and black.

We talked. We laughed. I fell for her, harder than I've ever fallen in my life, and suddenly my dreams weren't just yellow—they were green, too. I imagined her…and me.

Together.

Green and yellow. Yellow and green.

Two colors had never seemed so perfect before.

And then she showed her true face, the one she had been hiding all along. The yellow was polluted in my mind…And yet I saw it more and more, every day—a faded yellow scuff at the edge of Starfire's fingernail; the banana Robin ate every morning for breakfast; the can of sugar Raven pulled out every morning to stir into her tea. Yellow traffic lights. Yellow street lamps. Yellow daisies. Yellow sticky notes. Yellow this, yellow that.

I found myself hating every blonde girl we passed on the street.

And even now, when I swear to myself that I don't still love her, when I try to erase her face from my mind, when I try and try to rip her photo apart and can never force myself to actually do it—

I see her face in my mind. And all I can think is that she's yellow, she's always been yellow and she'll always stay yellow, the yellow that stands for cowardice and treachery and lies. The yellow that I still long for, even when I want to hate it.

Yellow.

Green.

Two colors that were never meant to be together.

And at the rate life is going, they never will.


	11. Green

**Wow, this one's rough. I didn't really know what to do with this one, so it's kind of random and weird.**

**This is the most snapshot-type one yet—it really is just a scrap. I wanted to make a whole oneshot out of this, but I have an absolutely INSANE**** workload to finish before school starts on Monday. You wouldn't believe how much work. The idea wouldn't leave me alone, though, so I just kind of squeezed out something random and fast between the commercial breaks of the Olympics.**

**Since it's rough, I didn't establish what was going on. Background info: The mayor of Jump wanted all the Titans to come up with some inspirational stuff/words of wisdom, which they would later present in a speech for the kids of Jump. Speedy and Raven are at Titans West, bouncing ideas for their quotes off of each other.**

**Again, it's rough. But I seriously need to make a dent on that work.**

**Also...Thank you so much for your wonderful reviews, everyone! I love you guys to death. And I promise that at the end of this rainbow mini-series, I have a super-special surprise for you guys. Since, you know, you're awesome.**

**P.S: Thanks to Tim for letting me steal his phrase 'fem-Nazi'. Not that I actually asked, of course. But whatever…**

**Love and cupcakes,**

**--Phina**

**--**

**Prompt #11: Green**

"Here's one," Speedy called over to Raven, who was making tea in the kitchen. "_'Don't be afraid of failure. Even I failed once in my life, and look how I turned out!'"_

Raven snorted. "Way to show the little kiddies how to be modest, Speedy. I'm sure their parents will be just tickled when their offspring come home even more egotistical than you." She glided out of the kitchen, bearing a tray with two teacups on it. He accepted one with a nod of thanks. Looking down—green tea: fragrant, cloudy and a little sad, like the smell of damp leaves burning in fall.

Hmm. Suspicious? Or not?

He was comfortable enough with Raven (for Christ's sake, they were both Titans, after all), but they had been bantering for over an hour now, and he wasn't quite sure if he trusted her to not poison his tea. Even as a joke. She _did_ have a sense of humor, after all. It was just…subtle.

Was poisoning a teammate's tea subtle?

Hmm.

He just wouldn't drink it; that was all. Even if Raven looked like she was actually enjoying hers, curled carefully at the end of the couch, slowly sipping it while leafing through her notepad thoughtfully.

The silence made him nervous, so he interrupted it. "Okay, okay, I got another one." Speedy harrumphed a little—his voice was starting to break (barely noticeable!) but it was enough to make Raven smirk every now and then—and shook out the scrap of paper he had been doodling on. "How's this: _'Winning isn't everything: the person who has the most fun really wins.'_ Profound, yeah?"

Raven graced him with another snort and flicked past another page of her notebook. "Could you be any cornier? You're making Beast Boy look like he's of an average IQ right now."

He laughed and glanced down at his pad of paper again. "Okay, here's a good one. What about, _'Life's a bastard and then you die'?_"

Raven frowned a little. "Who says life's a guy?"

"Who says it isn't?"

"Mother Nature's a woman," she shot back, and Speedy couldn't help but grin.

"Fine, fem-Nazi. _'Life's_ _a _bitch_ and then you die'._ Happy?"

She gave him her vampire smile—that cold, creepy one, the one that had Dr. Light begging for mercy whenever he saw it. "Enough to jump over the moon." She sipped from her teacup, posture angular, movements graceful. And when she let the smile slip away, carefully arranging her face into a composed mask again, he felt the sudden urge to see her smile again.

She noticed him staring at her. The defensive walls came up—her posture tensed, her face closed off, and she subconsciously moved away from him on the couch to perch on the arm of the sofa. The arms crossed.

Like a wounded animal. Never trusting.

He felt a pang of sadness. That she had to be this way. That she couldn't just sit on a couch with a teammate and not feel threatened.

To lighten the mood, he pulled another quote at random from his notepad. "What about this one? '_If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. If you fail _again_, hire someone to do it for you.'_" He looked back up at her, grinning, and was relieved to see a tiny smirk playing at the corner of her mouth.

"Gee, Speedy. You sure know how to set an example for the 'future of Jump City'." Her fingers formed graceful air quotes in the air.

Speedy looked genuinely wounded, at least for a second. "Fine, smartass—tell me one of yours." He settled back on the couch and thumped his steel-toed boots on top of the table, accidentally kicking the remote to the floor in the process.

Her posture immediately tensed again, as if she were withdrawing into herself. She pulled her cloak tighter around her body. "I don't have any."

He returned her snort from earlier. "Come on, Raven—we've been at this for an hour and a half and you don't have _anything?_ You're a worse procrastinator than Aqualad when it's his turn to clean out the fridge."

Raven shifted, just slightly. Maybe she was just uncomfortable from her precarious perch on the sofa arm, or maybe she was—dare he think it—actually _embarrassed_?

"Fine," she snapped, and he wondered if he had maybe been imagining the embarrassment. Her dark eyes scanned her notebook, glancing over the words so quickly that she couldn't possibly be reading them, could she? "'_Don't date someone unless you're going to marry them. And if you do, then make sure they're the person you really want._'"

He couldn't help it—he laughed. A lot. "What was _that_?" he managed to gasp between chuckles. "Words of wisdom on the subject of _dating_? Do you know this little pearl because of your fantastic track record of significant others?"

Her eyes turned cold, and the hint of a snarl curled the corner of her mouth. "And this is coming from a man who obviously has _so_ many successful relationships under his belt. Exactly _how_ did Donna break up with you again? Wasn't it something along the lines of her throwing you out of your apartment into the snow and then screaming back at you that she was having an affair with your roommate anyway?"

Whoa.

Wait—hold up.

Did she just…was that…did he hear that…was that really…did she really just say that?

His eyes widened in shock even as his fingers clenched so hard around the tiny handle of the cup that a small crack appeared on the glazed surface.

Yeah. She did.

That stung. That stung like hell.

It was a sarcastic comment at best. But it hurt even more because Raven had actually gotten it right.

_Raven._

The only one on the whole frickin' team that was supposed to know when to stop.

Speedy dropped his eyes and turned back to the sheet of paper, pretending to scrawl something down on it. He took a sip of the tea to distract himself, forgetting that he wasn't supposed to, and felt the sad taste of autumn leaves whispering inside of him. Reminding him. Taunting him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Raven's expression soften, and a flicker of regret flitted past her face.

"I'm sorry, Speedy. That was cruel of me."

"Nah, it's cool," he said breezily, playing it off as one of those blasé, I-don't-give-a-crap, rip-out-my-heart-and-tear-me-to-shreds-with-your-eyes-to-see-if-I'm-alive kind of moments. But the mood of the room had changed, and if he could sense it, then Raven definitely could. It was charged, now: the sharp—if playful—banter had been erased by something bigger. Something badder. Something he still didn't want to think about, even years after the fact.

He knew it was just her defense mechanism—he insulted her, so naturally she fired back.

But it didn't stop the hurt.

He glanced down at the eggshell cup in his hands, looking down at the cloudy green of the tea, and watched numbly as the green surface shimmered with his painfully beating heart.


	12. Blue

**Struggled with this for a while. Had three false starts: a Rob/Star fluff, ending with him having the dramatic unmasking scene; a KF/Jinx introspection piece about Flash's eyes; and then an idea I adored, which was Raven and Speedy going to a blues café and dancing the night away. Finally came up with this, though. On a side note, X is a total jerk when you're writing for him. He makes things _sooooooooo_ hard.  
**

**I kinda like this finished piece, though. :)**

**Mad props go to Sylver, for more reasons than I can name, such as how we IM for hours and she gives me the **_**best **_**ideas, and like how she's pretty much my soul buddy in every sense of the word. She's had a really rough time lately, so…go shower her with love. Seriously. :D**

**Raven/Red X. Because it kicks major ass. It just does. And also because I like the idea of a very convoluted X.  
**

**--**

**Prompt # 12: Blue**

I wonder if she knows how much I want her.

But that's not true, really. I don't just_ want _her.

I love her.

I hate her.

I desire her.

I admire her.

I watch her.

I find her—

—and then I lose her.

I see her face, her perfect crystal face, and I wonder what it would take to crack the perfect surface; to see what's frozen beneath the gemstone veil. I see her hair, gleaming amethyst strands of silk, and wonder if I could snip a lock from her scalp and save it somewhere, so that crisp shade of purplish-blue could haunt me forever. I see her lips, the pale, understated plumpness of them more extraordinary than any other girl's, and wonder if she'd hurt me if I kissed them. I see her cloak, soft and clinging, and I wonder if I'd shame her if I ripped the blue cloth from her shoulders and crushed her body to mine.

When we fight, I imagine we're dancing, two sinuous coils of smoke: entwined, but never mingled. We fling ourselves around each other, ever-graceful, locked in our make-believe cages that brand us as Good and Evil. Taut skin is a hairsbreadth from touching, and then our momentum whirls us away and I find myself wondering if tasting her flesh once would cure me of the longing altogether.

I see her, amongst her friends, her teammates, and I hear them joke with her. Tiny things. The way she can't cook. The time she accidentally walked in on Robin in the shower. The window she broke when she threw Beast Boy out of the Tower. Silly things. Things I should know.

I've learned the names of everyone she cares for—even when she doesn't make it plain—hoping it's enough.

It will never be enough.

Now and then I hit her in battle, just to steal the tiniest feeling of her flesh. Sometimes it's harder than I wanted to and I see her gasp in surprise. Pleasure mingles with pain when I realize I've just hurt her, and even though she's expecting it, even though she's anticipating the wound, I get a vindictive sort of agony when I realize she doesn't trust me at all. So I smile, because she shouldn't, and then I ache, because I wonder what would happen if she did.

She's clever, too clever for her own good, and stronger than she will ever realize. She knows something of grief and I wish she never had to. She's too thin and I'm not happy with the length of her hair. I can't stop thinking about her.

She pains me. She inflames me. She is everything I want and everything I can never have.

She's alluring. Impossibly alluring.

I want to catch her, keep her, pin her to the wall like a dead butterfly so I can finally, finally understand her, but she would writhe from her bonds and fly forever. She would never let me.

I want to hate her: for being oblivious, for being alluring, for being _her._ I want to feel a surge of rage in my veins every time I see her. I want to despise her face, her body, her mind, her soul.

And in a way, I do.

But in a bigger way, I don't.

She's the embodiment of everything I gave up when I reconciled myself to crime. She's a demon. She's a hero. She fights to be better than she is. She does good things for good reasons, even when it would be easier to do the opposite. She's surrounded by people who want her—she's loneliness at its best.

She's my forbidden drug, my impossible love.

Her blue eyes are everything I want. Everything I need. I am nothing more than a phantom—disappearing at will, always moving, pausing no longer than the glint of light on water. I wonder sometimes if I even exist.

She anchors me to this day and time, and when I look at her, I remember myself.

I've always liked being invisible—the one you never see, unless I choose it. But now, in the face of this all, I realize that I want her to see me…Because I know, I just _know, _that if she saw me once, pierced me through and through with those excruciatingly blue eyes, I'd wake up—

And until she does, I am nothing more than a dream.


	13. Purple

**Oy vey. This thing majorly sucked to write. Just so you know.**

**Sylver was a freaking lifesaver during this: she basically rescued it from its suckiness and made it half-decent. Which truly was a record-breaking feat. This thing, no matter how sloppy now, was absolutely _dreadful _before Sylver came along. She's amazing. She really is.**

**Anyway…there is **_**so **_**much that I want to say right now, but it's eleven o' clock and I'm exhausted. Just...read it. Please don't be harsh that this isn't really in "Seraephina-style". Please try to ignore the absolute plague of adverbs. xD  
**

**AND OMGAH! REVIEWER SURPISE!! AT THE END!! :D :D :D**

**--**

**Prompt #13: Purple**

Robin slammed his fist down on the coffee table, glaring impressively at the gathered men before him. "I already told you! It's part of the job description!"

A man clad in a too-tight blue leisure suit harrumphed and adjusted his tiny glasses imperiously. "Nevertheless, _Robin, _the citizens of our lovely city are not pleased with the rate of destroyed vehicles. Or the annual cost of repairing personal property. Not pleased at all."

Another man, this one rail-thin but with a massive tidal wave of gelled hair combed over his forehead, broke in. "It's not that we don't appreciate what you do for Jump City, Robin," he said earnestly. "It's just…well…you're so…destructive."

From the other side of the room, by the far window, Raven snorted imperiously, but when a few of the suit-clad men turned to look at her, her face was carefully composed into its typical blank stare.

Cyborg glowered at the crowd of elected officials, and his hand clenched around the seat of the couch. "You don't like our style? Then go find replacement heroes! Just don't come crying back to us when they can't save your sorry a— "

"Peace, Cyborg," Starfire interrupted. She stared imploringly at the businessmen in front of them. "Please, we do not wish to cause trouble. I am sure that we can improve upon our battle techniques. Is this not so, friends?" Starfire looked at her friends for support, her green eyes troubled.

A few of the men sighed, relieved, but a woman in a dark blue pantsuit cleared her throat haughtily. "Well, it's nice to know that at least _one _of your team members has the decency to mind her manners." Her sharp brown eyes narrowed arrogantly, and a few of her co-workers laughed appreciatively.

Robin felt a sharp stab of anger at the assembled businessmen. He gave a snort that rivaled Raven's and stood up abruptly. "I think you're overstaying your visit," he said sharply, and stalked out of the room.

"We'll be anticipating a dramatic decrease in damaged property this following month!" an overweight man with a lurid green tie called.

"I'm a man of my word," Robin growled back at them. "You'll get your damn results."

Beast Boy growled at them, and Robin distantly heard hasty footsteps exiting the room before he stepped out onto the balcony.

The cool wind felt good against his face as he slouched against Beast Boy's balcony wall. _Damn politicians, _he thought vindictively. An uncharacteristic anger tightened his throat, but he took a deep breath and tried to find his center, as Batman had taught him.

"Hey, dude," Beast Boy called, strolling out on the balcony. He perched agilely on the half-wall separating them from a long drop to the yard below. The government workers were gathering just below them, Cyborg apparently having kicked them out of the Tower. "Those guys are really annoying, you know? I'm surprised you didn't throw them out the window."

Robin sighed and curled his fingers into a fist. "I'm not really up for a pep talk, Beast Boy."

"Oh, I know that. I just figured you might be up for a little prank on Jump City's finest."

Robin looked up. Beast Boy was bouncing a massive eggplant on one palm, looking smug.

"I'm totally going to drop this thing on their heads," he explained jubilantly. "Serves them right, for having freaking heart attacks over a couple dented cars."

"I don't think that's an amazing idea, Beast Boy," Robin said cautiously.

Beast Boy laughed. "Whatever, dude. You know you'd totally do it if you had the chance."

That stung a little. Robin crossed his arms. "I'm a little more mature than you assume, Beast Boy."

"Wanna bet?"

Robin raised his eyebrow slightly. "Fine."

Beast Boy grinned devilishly. "I _so_ bet you won't drop this eggplant on them."

Robin looked out the window again, knowing that his masked stare was probably just as pissed off as Raven's, albeit in a more reasonable sort of way, and felt a massive surge of irritation towards the business suits trampling the struggling flower beds that no one ever really remembered to water below the balcony. He frowned, hoping that he had maybe inherited Batman's rumored gift for shooting little lightning bolts out of his eyes, and was a little disappointed when he didn't. So disappointed, in fact, that he then slouched against the wall and mumbled, "I bet you I will."

Beast Boy was stunned for a moment, and then a wide, wicked smile split his face open. He tossed the eggplant to him and settled back against the window ledge. "Do it."

"What?"

"Drop it."

Robin settled himself more securely against the wall. "I was joking, Beast Boy."

A wide grin was stretching across Beast Boy's face. "Thought you were a _man of your word, _Robin. You're gonna go back on that? Break a promise to me?"

That was _definitely _below the belt_._ Robin glared at Beast Boy and pushed his back hard enough to the wall that he could maybe pretend he was glued there.

It wasn't that he didn't _want _to drop a large, misshapen vegetable on the carefully-structured heads of Jump's finest businessmen. He was pissed off enough to drop the freaking T-car on them. He just didn't particularly want to deal with the aftermath.

But Beast Boy actually had a reasonable, if annoying, point.

Robin let out a frustrated breath and un-glued himself from the wall, which Beast Boy seemed to take as a go-ahead. They both peered over the window ledge at the teeming crowd beneath, just a mass of business suits and overly-gelled hair. Robin laughed, nervously. "They look…fragile."

"Dude, it won't do any _damage. _It'll just, you know, scare them."

"And maybe stain their very expensive business suits."

"Hey, I thought you said you would do this." He nudged Robin in the ribs, then winced—and Robin couldn't help but feel a sly sort of amusement for a second that six months of grueling ab workouts had actually paid off.

Robin frowned and tossed the eggplant from hand to hand, attempting to stall for a little more time. "You do remember that we're good guys, right? That we're supposed to be protecting these people?"

Beast Boy grinned easily, light glinting off of his fang. He snatched the eggplant from Robin in mid-air and sank his teeth into it with a slurping sound. "Yeah, but…" he swallowed some, mouth stained purple from the juice, "…y'know, if we don't find some way to get rid of this thing, I'll have to use it in dinner. Because it _is _my night to cook." He stared at Robin, the tiniest hint of a mischievous smile around his mouth. "Dude, this is like five pounds of vegetable. And I'm going to make you eat _all_ of it."

Robin blinked, staggered. He'd known Beast Boy was reasonably intelligent, even if he didn't show it. But this was absolutely _calculating._

As far as he could see, he had three options.

The first: Refuse. _Just say no_ and all that. Walk away. Subject himself to relentless taunts and flee with the knowledge that Beast Boy would just sucker Cyborg into the bet. Also, be bludgeoned into eating eggplant for dinner. Eurgh.

Second: Agree. Drop the stupid thing on the businessmen. Instant gratification, but several, if not more, consequences, such as (but not limited to) yelling, angry executive types, general disturbing of the peace, ect. However, a large purple projectile whizzing towards the overly-shiny heads of the corporate types was an alarmingly attractive mental image.

Third: Smack Beast Boy. Take eggplant. Throw it into a dumpster somewhere (interchangeable with feeding it to Silkie). Keep constant eye on Beast Boy for next three years to make sure he never, ever, _ever_ bought an eggplant while in firing range of a corporate building.

He really wasn't much into vegetables, regardless of the obvious health benefits. Besides, he had supplements. Fred Flintstone vitamins never went out of style.

He wasn't much for angry executive types either, but he _really_ wasn't up for constant supervision every time they passed a grocery store.

There wasn't really much else he could do besides weigh the eggplant (minus a dripping bite) in his hands and sigh, "Five pounds, you said?"

Beast Boy cheered and clapped him on the back. "Do it now, dude! Before they grow any more gray hairs!"

Robin looked down, down, down at the milling horde. He glanced at the large purple vegetable in his hands. Then back at Beast Boy.

"Where did you even get an eggplant, Beast Boy? It's the middle of November."

"Stop stalling and drop the thing."

Robin looked down again. The people looked terribly breakable. He felt his palms start to sweat a bit, and the eggplant slipped slightly in his grip. "You do know that this goes against my very strict internal code of conduct, don't you?"

"You don't even have to _do _anything, Robin. Unless Cyborg screwed up the 0-G thing in the workshop again, gravity's gonna do the work for you."

Another sigh.

And then, strangely enough, Robin found himself wondering just how amazing the eggplant would sound imploding against the shiny bald heads of the businessmen, so he sucked in a breath and did what he always did:

He acted.

The eggplant seemed to drop very, very slowly. Wheeling around in midair. It seemed to get more solid as it fell, actually, and Robin's never-ceasing brain fitfully spat out calculations to keep him from going into shock.

Five pounds would drop maybe nine feet per second, and there was probably about seventy-six feet between the ground and Beast Boy's balcony, but if you gauged in the drag of the oddly-shaped mass and figured in that the inertia had possibly affected it as well then it would take about thirteen seconds to fall, which meant that it had about one-point-three-nine-five seconds until it hit, which meant that the screams would be starting right about…

Now.

It was quite a beautiful thing, Robin realized, a little belatedly. The wet, juicy sound of implosion as it collided with several shiny heads at once. Those great splinters of eggplant-membrane flying everywhere. The vividly purple stains coating a circumference of about twenty people, give or take.

Beast Boy was choking on his own laughter, but all Robin could do was grin in a slightly shocked, slightly impressed, slightly amused, slightly terrified-that-his-job-title-could-very-well-be-stripped-from-his-Spandex-at-any-given-moment sort of way.

"Dude, that was _awesome!_" Beast Boy shouted, very nearly giddy.

Robin finally laughed, and once he started, he couldn't stop. It _was _pretty awesome, now that he thought about it. Very…satisfying. In a weird way. It was actually…fun, he realized. To go against his strict honor code. To loosen up a little.

Okay, so maybe he wouldn't do it every day. But it sure was one hell of a good time. For today, at least.

_Oh, who am I kidding? _he thought, looking down at the vividly purple group of politicians below him. _This was awesome._

The door behind them suddenly opened, and they both spun around, slightly guilty expressions flashing across their faces. Raven took one look at their flushing cheeks and glanced over their shoulders at the furious, purple-splattered crowd below.

She finally raised one eyebrow and shook her head slowly. "Do I even want to know?"

"Uh…not really," Beast Boy managed. He grinned weakly and rubbed the back of his head, a nervous tic from his days with the Doom Patrol.

The tiniest hint of a smile quirked her lips, but she turned around before it fully materialized. "Fine, then."

She gracefully avoided a reeking pile of Beast Boy's dirty laundry as she strode back towards the living room. Robin started to look at the green changeling with a bit of a relieved grin on his face, but Raven stopped at Beast Boy's door, her voice interrupting him.

"Hey, Beast Boy," she called, leaning against his doorframe. Her expression was blank, but her eyes were terribly, terribly amused. "I was thinking I'd take over your shift for dinner tonight…do you know any good recipes for eggplants?" She stared them down, unflinchingly stony as they flushed. Robin felt a bead of sweat roll down his forehead, and blinked it away before it stung his eye.

That Raven might go down and tell the businessmen precisely why they were covered in eggplant innards was a very real possibility. Even if she did it as a joke. A very cruel, very _Raven _sort of joke.

She stared at them for another second or two, the tiniest ghost of a smirk tilting her lips, and then she turned back to the kitchen.

Beast Boy turned and looked at Robin, a flicker of fear in his eyes.

"She wouldn't," he murmured, sounding unconvinced.

Robin looked at Raven's retreating back, then back down to the purple-splattered crowd below them, remembering the faint smirk on Raven's face.

She would. She _so _would.

"So, Beast Boy," he said slowly, the nonchalant sound of his voice only just failing. "Where exactly do you hide when it's Starfire's turn to cook?"

He had the rueful feeling that they were going to be cowering for a long, long while.

--

**Well, that was interesting, wasn't it? But, the part I've been drooling over for six chapters!! :D**

**The Reviewer's Surprise!!**

**Here's the deal. For the next five chapters of the fic, **_**you **_**get to pick the word. Crazy, yeah? So, in a review, just put the word you want for the next chapter. If you'd like, you can also add a plotline, pairing, whatever you want. And you can do this for every chapter. So, for this chapter, I'll take every word suggestion I get, and put it in a hat. I'll draw a word. I'll write the fic. I'll repeat this until I finish the five fics. And, of course, I'll add any other words I get in reviews on the five fics.**

**Just a couple rules:**

**-One word per review.**

**-You can submit a new word for every chapter. I'll just keep adding them to the hat.**

**-No slash pairings, PLEASE. I'm Christian, I tolerate homosexuality, I adore my gay guy-friends to death, but I don't really enjoy writing it. Spare me, please.**

-**Any other pairings go. Seriously. Sylver requested, in advance, a Kid Flash/Star with Terra/Robin. As you can see, Sylver is the absolute queen of crack!fics...so if you have something that seems pretty out-there, don't worry. I can handle it. :)**

**-Have fun with it! :D I'm so excited to see you guys' ideas!  
**

**Love and cupcakes,**

**Phina**

**(By the way, did I mention that SYLVER IS A FREAKING LIFESAVER? No? Too bad. :D)**


	14. Blight

**Wouldn't you have guessed it? The very first word to be chosen from the hat just had to be a BB/Rae. And I'm **_**sooo**_** not even being dramatic when I say this was the most difficult piece of writing I've ever done. And I'm not even going to delete that sentence from this Author's Note, because YES I am going to be a big whiney-pants about how much I suffered. :D Because I never suffer in silence. :D  
**

**...Oh yeah...Dudes, I'm so tired of angst. Review at the end if you'd like, leave another word, just PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, DON'T MAKE IT BB/RAE. OR ANGST.**

**Well…Unless you **_**really **_**have to. :)**

**--**

**Prompt #14: Blight**

**Submitted by RabulaTasa**

**BB/Rae**

It's always the forbidden fruit that tantalizes her the most.

When she was young, it was innocent, childlike. The last slice of cake in the pan – the one that her mother had been eyeing all day – was the one she wanted so badly that her five-year-old mind was overwhelmed with Longing. She'd cry out of sheer terror from the strength of her _want_, her _craving_, but her mother would just sigh and click her tongue against her teeth and assume that her diaper needed changing or there was syrup coating her plump fingers. An hour later Arella would succumb to the craving and delicately slice into the cake. Raven would avert her red-rimmed eyes and cry silently into a silk-tasseled pillow, her too-young mind terrified of the whims of her body.

And the _want_ died a quiet death in her throat.

Now that she is older, it is less charming – the wishes become desires, the wants become needs. What was once childish indulgence has morphed into something darker, something deeper, something that is terrifying to experience and all the more terrifying because _it never goes away._

Desire is ruthless. She imagines a tiger: snarling; merciless; curled away in her chest, ripping her insides apart from the fury of unrequited want. And, in the few, shining moments where she unleashes her mind from its disciplined chokehold and unwraps the tight bands around her soul, she imagines that the tiger is green.

Because of course he had to find his way into her heart.

And of course it was only predictable that it was going to hurt, too.

--

Her friends, she reflects, are the most perfect, painful example of her screwed-up life.

Wonderful people; fantastic fighters; invaluable friends. Cyborg, the big brother. Starfire, the soul sister. Robin, the best friend.

And Beast Boy.

The one for whom she can find no words.

They all know that her mind is…complicated, to say the least. But not one of them has ever fathomed how difficult it is for her to exist among them. How grueling each and every day is. How absolutely _terrifying _it is when she knows she's about to lose control and can feel her soul slipping away between her fingers.

The closer her friends come, the farther she distances herself. Any emotion: Joy, Sorrow, Warmth, Despair…they threaten to overwhelm her. They threaten to unleash themselves upon her friends – if she were to lose control, their flesh would be as soft and yielding as cottage cheese to the tendrils of her black, black power.

And then she would have no one left.

So of course they are forbidden to her.

Yet _because_ they are forbidden, _because_ they are barred from her touch, she finds herself intoxicated with them. She despairs at their distance and finds relief in it at the same time. Her life is a mass of contradictions.

They are untouchable. Every moment of closeness is charged with the electricity of _fear_. The glut of emotion is overwhelming.

And she can never, _ever _be overwhelmed again.

So she holds them at arm's length. Because at arm's length they are never close enough to touch her, never near enough to see the terror that never quite leaves her throat. Every moment of every day is laced with the fear that she will snap – and, in doing so, destroy the only people in her life who love her.

She will never, _ever _snap.

Because they mean far too much to her.

What she feels for her friends is…strong. But smothered. Every time Starfire ignites a warm glow in her chest, every time Cyborg makes her want to grin in Delight, she stifles the feeling, chokes it into submission and buries it deeply in the compost pile of her mind. The memories glow there, like jewels, bright bursts of joy amidst the enormous pile of crap that used to be her life.

But Beast Boy was never one to be stifled.

She hates him as much as she finds herself mesmerized by him. The way he wriggled into her life, crashing through the careful walls around her soul, demolishing every standard she ever created for herself. He clawed his way into her heart, ripped his way into her chest, and stayed there, purring as only a well-satisfied cat could.

She hates how the lush, mossy green of his skin seeps into her mind until every dream looks like a parade in Dublin on Saint Patrick's Day. She hates how easily the effortlessly the smile curls his mouth, how quickly he decides to throw his arms around a person, how easily he finds it to love. Beast Boy has never held anyone at arm's length in his life.

And she hates how she will never be able to draw him closer, no matter how she tries.

Her touch causes pain. She knows this from experience. Once she sliced her hand while hacking open a package of sharp cheddar cheese. The pain was surprising – the size and depth of the cut even more so. Stretching the length of her palm, jagged from the edges of the serrated knife. Her stomach twisted in a sickening wave of pain.

She screamed.

Robin came running, his eyes wild. He took one look at her, kneeling on the cold tile floor, trying desperately to stop the flow of blood with her cloak, and dropped to his knees beside her.

She was wild with pain: too feral to control her emotions. The moment Robin seized her wrist to inspect the damage, a jagged wall of black knocked him backwards into the wall. Pain forgotten, she stammered apologies, horrified with her unhinged mind. And then she ran, ran, ran, fast as she could, shocked with the knowledge that her touch caused Robin pain and sick with the realization that it would never, never change.

The only truth she'd ever rejected, the only one she'd tried to forget, the only one she found too screwed-up for even _her_ life…it pulsed in front of her eyes as she fled.

Unchangeable.

Unconquerable.

She was a blight.

It wasn't a melodramatic thought. Her emotions were destructive. Her touch was devastating. Sickness bled from her fingers like ink from a broken pen; spreading, spreading, spreading, in a pool of frenzied sensations.

And so, for the sake of the Titans, she locked herself away, chanting faint pleas to her home, stretching frail fingers to the father-that-wasn't in an effort to keep her friends _just far enough._

She cold-shouldered Starfire's tempting offers for an afternoon of Happiness. She pushed away Robin's alluring proposals of Friendship. She snubbed Cyborg's well-meant words of kindness and brotherly symbols of Affection.

And Beast Boy?

There was no name for what she felt.

He was cheerful, and frivolous, and in love with life. He had an easy warmth and an easier smile. He had wormed his way into her heart, captured it, stained it green: the green of his skin, the green of envy…it didn't matter which one had painted her heart, it just mattered that it no longer belonged to her.

She has no experience with Love. She has read enough to know that it is life-changing, awe-inspiring, mysterious, terrifying. She swallows these thoughts without bothering to name them – because, deep inside, she knows she Loves them all.

She Loves him more.

She will never touch him, of course: she will never trace his firm jawline like she's always wanted to, or whisper in his grass-green ear that she loves him, she loves him, she's always loved him and she always will.

She will never do any of this until he dies.

And then, finally, when he has passed from the mortal plane and lies cold and still and silent in his coffin, she will brush her lips against his and murmur everything she's ever wanted to tell him.

Because only when he is dead will she cease to be a blight.

And only when he is dead will she finally leave the world that caused her so much pain and pleasure…and join him.

Forever.

--

**SO TIRED OF ANGST.**

**Review, dahlings! Remember, this is just another chance to get another word into the hat! :)**

**Love and cupcakes,**

**--Phina**

**P.S: A huge, lovely thank-you to Sylver, who got her drill-sergeant on and made me suck it up about all the pain this chapter put me through. She's fabulous. :) Ooh, and thanks to XxNightfirexX as well for being a lovely and sympathetic listener as I moaned about how awful BB/Rae is. xD She rocks too.**

**And Rab? You are an evil, _evil _little man. :D**


	15. Rope

**I can't believe this came out of my mind. But, well…It's a gift for Sylver, who is the queen of crack!ships. And it just so happens that I had a headache and needed **_**some**_** way to fit **_**something**_** to the word "Rope." So, yeah, it's probably OOC and yeah, it would probably never happen. **

**Bu this is what I thought of – so I took it and ran.**

**Be afraid, loves. Be very afraid.**

**--**

**Prompt #15: Rope**

**Suggested by Tennisgal495**

**(And also a gift for SylverEyes, who will never be without some kind of crack!ship. :D)**

**--**

"Well, Star, I think we've definitely reached the conclusion that you're…er…flea-free."

"Yes, I believe so."

"They're definitely not on your stomach."

"No, nor my arms. And the tiny insect invaders are most certainly not located on my feet."

"But…you know…I don't think we've checked…_everywhere…_"

A pause.

"I believe I quite enjoy this 'checking' business."

"Right back at you."

"In fact, I believe we should have started much, much earlier."

"Oh, yeah."

--

Raven was roused with a poke.

It was not simply a _poke, _though. No, it was far more violent than that. A _poke_ signified annoyance, or amusement, or in very rare cases, an I-really-really-really-need-to-pee-so-can-we-please-stop-listening-to-depressing-poety-about-heathen-idols-and-go-kneel-in-front-of-the-white-ceramic-god-of-the-latrine-instead?

This was like being jabbed in the side with a broom handle, she mused groggily, before the sharp pain in her side came again.

"Uhn," Raven mumbled into her pillow, shifting away from the broomstick-handle-thing instinctively.

"Raven?" The voice was high, trilling. "Are you rejuvenated?"

Raven mumbled something that sounded like "leemee uh luhn" into the comforter of her bed.

The whatever-it-was dug into her rib cage for the third time, and she finally mustered up enough irritation to crack her bleary eyes open. Starfire's fiery hair swam into view, her eyes wide and slightly terrified in her heart-shaped face. Her finger was poised to poke Raven again, and Raven immediately knew that she was going to be sporting some lovely bruises the next day.

"Raven, I am aware that you do not like to be woken so early in the day, but I found myself in need of a 'girl talk'," Starfire whispered. She dug her long, thin fingers into Raven's comforter, the charcoal gray contrasting strangely with the smooth orange of her skin.

Raven hoisted herself up on one elbow, figured that she was far too exhausted to maintain that position for any length of time, and sighed, flopping back onto the bed. She dropped a throw pillow over her face, shielding her sensitive eyes from the light streaming through the windows. "Can this wait, Star? I was up all night – I think Silkie went insane last night because he kept thumping against the walls of your room."

There was a pause.

"Um…Raven…this is what I…wish to speak to you…about."

Another sigh.

Raven stifled a jaw-cracking yawn and pulled the covers over her head, her mind foggy from tiredness. "Did Silkie get into the Zorkaberries again?" she mumbled, and yawned again.

"No…"

There was a thick silence.

Raven peeked out from under the covers, her eye a slit of liquid among the blankets. "Is something wrong, Star?" The alien's emotions were twisted – she couldn't make head or tails of them.

Starfire hugged one of Raven's pillows to her chest and buried her face in it. Her words came out muffled – but far, far too clear for comfort.

"Do you remember the time we conversed about…physical…relations?"

The tiredness evaporated from Raven's brain. She removed the pillow from her head, eyes narrowing sharply in her pale face – and then the realization of the words hit her like a baseball bat to the face.

"No," she whispered, her mouth dropping open.

Starfire shifted awkwardly, but a smile broke out on her face. "Yes."

"_No._"

"Yes!" Starfire cried triumphantly, her face glowing.

_No. Freaking. Way._

They sat like that for a while, Raven's heartbeat loud in her ears. Finally she stirred, coughed, and sat up slightly in the bed. "I can't believe I'm asking you this, Star..." She shook her head slightly, her dark eyes incredulous that this absolutely pathetic, clichéd sentence was about to come out of her mouth.

"Well...who'd you do?"

A small giggle escaped Starfire's mouth.

--

"Guys, you're not going to believe this."

There was a dramatic pause in which Cyborg and Robin looked up from dismantling the DVD player in the living room to see Beast Boy, slouching against the doorframe, looking far, far too pleased with himself.

"_Best. Night. Ever."_

--

"You _didn't._"

Starfire giggled again, the sound slightly hysterical, if overjoyed.

Raven scooted farther up in bed, her back pressed against the headboard. She smiled slightly, then looked furious at herself, and then let her face fall into a shocked expression.

"You and...Beast Boy?"

Starfire looked as if she were about to die from happiness. "Yes!" she squealed, accidentally hovering a few feet in the air from joy.

Raven blinked, amazed. "How did...how...how did that even...happen?"

Starfire shrieked with joy, then calmed herself and gave Raven a death hug. "Oh, friend, we were checking our skin for fleas after our out-camp..." She squealed again.

_Oh. Yes. The camp-out. _Raven _did _remember, now – they had been organizing it for weeks.

Starfire cartwheeled in midair a few times before bringing her hands to her face and laughing giddily, and then, oddly enough, her heart soaring for her soul sister's happiness, Raven found that it was all she could do to not laugh along with her.

--

Beast Boy sprawled out over the couch with all the arrogance of a king. Which, in fact, he was – at least in Robin and Cyborg's eyes.

"I can't believe it," Robin muttered, his entire face awed.

Cyborg nodded fervently. "BB got the girl."

They looked at each other, eyes wide, and then said together, "_BB got the girl._"

Beast Boy grinned, altogether too pleased with everything in his life.

Robin adjusted his position on the couch. "I can't believe I'm about to ask you this..." His face flushed slightly, but Cyborg nudged him in the ribs. Robin seemed to draw inner strength from the deepest, darkest corner of his soul, and he closed his eyes, eyebrows pulling together intently.

"So...how was it?"

--

Fifteen minutes later, Starfire seemed to have burned off most of the giddy energy, and Raven found her voice.

"You're...okay, right?" She eyed Starfire anxiously, half-afraid that the girl – no, she was a _woman _now, Raven reminded herself – was hurt somehow.

Starfire shook her head joyfully and smiled, clasping Raven's hands. "I am well. Better than well. I am...glorious." A shining smile. "But...thank you, friend. You are being so very kind."

The alien's eyes watered from happiness and she gave a soggy sort of giggle. "I...I...I'm just so _happy_," she whispered, and the glow on her face made every critical word on Raven's tongue vanish as quickly as sand on the wind.

But she couldn't help but ask.

"It was...that good?" she asked, unable to keep the disbelieving note out of her voice. (It was Beast Boy, for Azar's sake! Beast Boy! Beast Boy wasn't supposed to be _good! _He was supposed to be the little kid of the group!)

There was a silence.

The glow faded from Starfire's face and her eyebrows scrunched together, her voice confused. "The first time...I...do not know." She looked at her hands, vivid green eyes puzzled. "It was...strange," she said slowly. "One moment I thought to myself, 'Kori'ander, this is it! This is what all of the talks have been about! This is what all of the excitement is about!' And then the next second, I had no thoughts at all."

Another silence, this one longer.

Raven looked bewildered. "I don't think you did it right."

--

Back in the living room, there was a charged silence before Beast Boy laughed. "How was it? Oh, man. It was..."

He stopped at the expressions on his friends' faces. They didn't want him to spill his guts about his _feelings. _They didn't want him to tell them that he was totally blissed out, or that he wanted to sprint over to Star's room and get down on one knee and beg for her to marry him and ride off into the sunset with her – or something cheesy like that – or even that he was absolutely, indescribably, _unspeakably _happy.

They wanted short, simple, and to-the-point.

At least, that was what they _said _they wanted. Their posture told it all: They wanted the physical, not the emotional. They were hanging on the edge of their seats, ready for a blow-by-blow, no-adjective-too-colorful, give-us-the-dirty-details _guy talk._

And so, with a grin hovering around his face, he decided to torment them.

Beast Boy stretched luxuriously and propped his head up on his elbow, staring at them with a grin that refused to go away. "It was_..._well, _you know_," he drawled, eyes glittering mischievously, and then he did could do nothing but laugh when they belted him with the sofa cushions.

--

Starfire let the frown melt off her face. "But that was only the _first _time," she said brightly. "I believe it was truly on the second that we...how do you say it? _Hit our stride._"

Raven sighed. "How many times, Star?"

Starfire twisted her long fingers together and looked at the chipped pink nail polish on them, smiling. "Thrice," she giggled, the wide smile on her face deliriously happy.

"Well, that's not _that _bad..."

--

"Six. Times."

Cyborg and Robin gaped for a second at each other, then turned their awed eyes on Beast Boy again.

"I didn't know he had it in him," Robin mumbled into Cyborg's ear.

"I didn't know his_ hardware _had it in him," Cyborg muttered back, and then they both collapsed into a fit of laughter.

--

Raven looked at Starfire appraisingly, and judged that she was emotionally stable enough for a question-and-answer session. She squirmed deeper into the covers and, involuntarily, a blush crept up her neck. "So...Star...Are you going to tell me all of the..." She swallowed hard, willing herself to say the words, even if it was just for the sake of Star's happiness.

"...scandalous details?"

Starfire adjusted the long white nightgown she was wearing, looking mortified as she stared at the white cotton covering her lap. "Well...there was some rope involved..."

Raven started choking.

Starfire instantly looked both terrified and guilty and started banging her on the back, alternately screeching "Breathe, Raven, breathe!" and muttering long strings of Tamaranian that might or might not have been suitable for young children to hear.

--

Beast Boy was halfway through describing the intricate procedure of blindfolding when he was interrupted with some of the loudest shrieks he'd ever heard in his life – and they were coming from _Raven's room._

"YOU _WHAT?!"_

"_It only occurred during the second time, Rav – oh, X'Hal, put your head between your knees!" _

There was a shell-shocked silence for a second or two before Cyborg snickered into his hands. "Looks like your woman's spilling the beans, BB."

Robin grinned and rested his hands on his knees, pointing his chin towards the door. "Might want to go check out the damage," he said teasingly, before his words were swallowed by a giant black hand encasing the living room door and flinging it to the side with an almighty crash. Raven, eyes wild, hair tangled around her flushed face, stood in the doorway, her chest heaving with exertion.

"Beast Boy –"

"RUN!" Cyborg yelled before he and Robin collapsed into another fit of laughter.

Beast Boy took one look at the furious Raven, her hair sheathed in a crackling sheet of black power that made it stand on end, and glanced past her to see Starfire waving timidly at him as she peeked around the demolished doorway.

He felt a giant wave of affection rise up in his chest and blew a kiss to her, grinning when she pursed her rosy lips and blew one right back.

And then, as they all heard a glass tinkling to the ground (presumably from a broken window somewhere), he wisely took his friends' advice and ran, the sounds of crashing, Raven-borne objects and laughter floating in his ears.

And even as he morphed into an eagle and flew as quickly as he could across the bay, he felt a giant smile spread across his feathery face, tinged with the sound of a giggle in his ears and widened by the thought that, despite Raven's best intentions for her soul sister, he and Star were going to have _all night, _and _all day, _and…who knew?

Maybe they'd have forever.

--

**Merry Christmas, Sylver. :D**


	16. Bliss

**I've decided to put the remaining three Reviewer's Surprise words on hold. Never fear – they will be back! But I figured I'd make much better progress with the multiple ideas that have been stewing in my brain lately.**

**This chapter is a taste-test, really. I've always (always!) wanted to do an AU story where everyone's in a band…but Sylver very firmly informed me that it's a ridiculously cliché and overused idea. So, you owe her many thanks for that – if she hadn't enlightened me, this thing would be incredibly, **_**painfully **_**cliché and just...bad. :D  
**

**And now it's not. **

**I think. :D**

**This is a snippet I thought of while watching **_**August Rush, **_**and I wrote the entire thing while listening to the song "Bach Break" from it. After you read this, there's a link on my profile – go listen. Seriously. It's incredible.**

**If you guys like this, I'm quite seriously considering making it a full-fledged story. If I add a plot (which I sort of have half-formed in my mind) would you guys read a whole story about it? Let me know, yeah?  
**

**Finally: AU, Raven's point of view. And the lead singer is Dick, by the way. As if it weren't obvious. :P**

**--**

**Prompt # 16: Bliss**

At eleven thirty at night, the music starts – and with it, her day.

The small bar crammed with wasted twentysomethings is unfamiliar, but this is nothing new. She's used to the traveling shows in tiny, obscure nightclubs with the band members whose names she doesn't know and the backup singers who once spat in her iced tea and ripped her favorite leather jacket to pieces. (It's kindergarten all over again. Once you hit twenty, weren't you supposed to grow out of all the immature temper tantrums?)

She doesn't remember the name of the band behind her, though she's been playing with them for more than five months now. The pianist is anonymous – the drummer's face is a shadowy smear in the corner of her vision.

They don't matter.

Nothing matters but the music.

She blocks out the messy emo boys passing their eyes up and down her body – she doesn't think to feel grateful that her black hoodie turns her figure from shapely to shapeless. She forgets the screaming crowd, the strobe lights throwing splintered shards of colored light into her eyes, the thrashing band behind her, the sweat dripping from every pore in her body. She's locked in her own private room – and as she feels the wild siren song surging along the guitar strings, she can't help the rapturous smile that splits open her face.

She _feels _the music under her fingers, _feels _the way the spun-glass melody shrills against the deeper chords underneath. It's ecstasy. It's bliss. The guitar trembles under her fingers, vibrating against her stomach, and her heart _thump-thumps _to the beat until it's her heart keeping time and her breath keeping balance, until her vision has narrowed to a pinprick of light, until she _is _the music. She's not Raven Roth anymore, she _is _the sound, she _is _the harmony, she is the big noise in the small room and for two minutes and forty-six seconds, she has become the crowd's entire world.

She hears the band behind her, feels the drummer's _bang-bang-bang _and the lead singer's wanton call – hears him strain his voice in a complex vocal rollercoaster – but she doesn't _feel _their music like she feels her own. She doesn't know them. She doesn't see them. She doesn't love them like she loves the guitar in her hands and the wild harmony in her throat and the blissful stage-blindness that has overcome her very identity.

But she feels it when the song crests. The lead singer clutches the mike, his dark hair hanging in sweat-slick spikes – the bassist flails – the pianist thrashes – and she is the clockwork that moves them forward, she is the emotion, she is the harmony that turns the singer's rollercoaster-voice into _magic._

And then the music breaks.

It's a catastrophic ending. She always hated it. It's painful to hear the notes grate against each other – a B major pushing up against an A minor – harsh, ugly – and the song screeches along to the ending: a shrill stabbing note that leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

The bliss has evaporated.

The music is over.

She stares blankly over the writhing crowd, lets the strobe lights play over her sweat-soaked skin. The final, wavering chords from the bass guitarist have melted into the shrieks of the crowd and she feels lost, terribly lost. There is no more music, no more stage-blindness, and the band members behind her are screaming back into the crowd and thumping each other on the back and throwing themselves to the crowded floor beneath the stage and the guys are tearing off their shirts and flinging them into the crowd. And she – the clockwork, the heartbeat – stands. She stands and she sways and she breathes, and she knows she will not fully exist again until she plays.

She feels the threads that connect her to this world break, like the Fates snipping away at the threads of life, and – _snip, snip, snip _– she feels herself flying, her feet locked to the ground, but her mind is soaring away because she's not entwined with the sound, she's not tangled up with the strands of the music.

She's slipping away, like she always does once the music ends. She never figured out if she likes the feeling or not.

Her vision flickers: her eyes lock onto the lead singer.

And her mind freezes.

He's standing, and he's swaying, and her breath catches because looking at him is like seeing herself, like seeing herself from a bird's-eye view. His arms hang slack at his sides. His rollercoaster-voice is hushed, but his eyes – the color of her ripped jeans, but brighter, better – are dazzling.

He half-turns – brushes at the back of his neck, like he can feel her gaze burned onto his skin.

His eyes, snapping with intensity, find hers.

A jolt.

They're like…lightning, his eyes…like electricity. Her skin stings. Her head buzzes. She stares back at him without seeing, listens to the shriek of the crowd without hearing. She is lost, because the music is gone, but – impossible – inconceivable – _he _is anchoring her to this place, _he _is anchoring her to this time. He is holding her back.

This has never happened before.

_This never happens._

She doesn't know this boy – this man – this _creature. _She has never been _held _like this before. His eyes are twin blazes of fire, though their color is closer to ice – they bind her, bind her to the sticky stage floor when all she wants is to flee from this beautiful, terrifying man who has shackled her in place with invisible chains.

She struggles against it, struggles against the grasp of his eyes, eyes that fill her veins with electrified bursts of terror, wonder, shock…

And bliss.

His lips part – slow, rapturous – and his ice-fire eyes are unreadable.

He grins. His teeth are very white.

The invisible chains snap – she's left reeling for a sliver of a second. He walks towards her, one foot – two feet – slow, unsure. There's a crease between his eyebrows as he stares at her: a hint of frustration, or maybe uncertainty, flashes across his face.

"Hey," he calls, a doubtful half-smile on his face.

She runs.

--

**Task number one: Is it worth making a story out of it?**

**Task number two: Listen to "Bach Break". There's a link, like, two mouse-clicks away on my profile. You have NO EXCUSE for not listening. At all. It takes up a grand total of two and a half minutes, people. :D**

**And finally, after probably the longest collective Author's Note in the history of FF, I'll leave you with this: **

**I love you guys. **

**Thanks for being awesome. :)  
**

**--Phina  
**


	17. Bang

**Sylver and I promised that the next time we both updated our 100-writing-prompts series, we'd have a Speedy/Cheshire on display.**

**I lied.**

**But it totally wasn't my fault! I was listening to the Black-Eyed Peas while writing the Speedy/Cheshire thing, and then this song of theirs was like, "Bang-bang-bang" and it sounded so cool that this random little drabble exploded in my brain. **

**Anyway. I was sort of playing with the emotions in this one, so…um…I think it's the first time I've ever used the f-bomb in a fic. TWICE.**

**Yeah. It's actually a little awkward to actually type…that word. And, just in case there's someone actually **_**younger**_** than me here, for the record, I do **_**not **_**condone the use of the f-bomb in casual conversation. Only in highly stressful situations. (Sylver uses it, though. Occasionally. I think that's where I mustered up the courage to post this, swearing intact. :D)  
**

**This one's Raven/Red X. A terribly sad little drabble. (And, weirdly enough, when I started writing this, I kept envisioning X killing Raven. Fun stuff, huh?) But I promise the Speedy/Cheshire in the next chapter will be much happier and I will **_**finally **_**be getting rid of this vague sort of style for a while. :D**

**Love and cupcakes! **

**--**

**Prompt #18: Bang  
**

_Bang-bang_, went her heart. _Snap-snap_, went her bones. _Damnit_, went the man, the guardian angel, as her blood trickled down his palms, staining them with her pain.

_Get up, damnit!_

_Don't you dare leave me! Don't you dare leave your team!_

His palms: red. His face: white. His hair: black. Blood. Snow. Ink. Her entire world, for a moment, for a second-split-into-pieces, before the world shattered, again – it was déjà vu of the sickest kind.

Fire, smoke. Walls crashing down. Cement, bricks, wood, the building falling – her legs, broken before, now bleeding. Blood and snow and ink shielding her body from the explosion – he did care about her, he _must _care about her – and then, oddly, there was something wet. Her hand, reaching, grasping, finding her scratched face – there were tears, his tears, falling on her cheeks. How strange.

And then his voice, like thunder and crushed velvet, stained with blood and tears, loud in her ear, cold with rage and grief:

_No! Damnit, you stand up! No! Fight it! _

She loved him even before the world shattered and she knew he was begging her to live.

Everything, slipping away. Her vision is turning grainy, like the old black-and-white movies he loved but pretended not to. Fire, scorching at her sleeve, turned into a cool caress, then nothing. Smoke, lacing her lungs, turned into the icy smell of his skin. Fierce anger, grief, in his storm-eyes. His body, sprawled over hers, his hands pushing, pressing, shoving his despair into her chest like the steady pressure of CPR could breathe hope into her broken body. Push. Push. _Bang-bang__, _her heart whispers, a faint promise of a hope that doesn't exist.

_Don't you dare leave me! Don't you dare! Fight! Breathe!_

A smile, curving her lips. He cared for her. She knew it all along.

_Fight, damnit! Fight! I'm not letting you go! I fucking love you, okay? Wake up! Stand the hell up! _

A swell of warmth in her chest. Love. Him. Her. Death.

It was just like pain, this pleasure.

_Sir, we're abandoning the building. You have to leave with the other survivors. _

_Don't tell me what to do!_

_Sir, we have to evacuate the premises._

_Get out of my way or I swear to G – _

_Sir, I am ordering you to leave the site of this crash – _

_Did you tell her team, then? Did you tell them that one of their friends is trapped here? How're you going to tell the alien that her best friend is bleeding to death? _He heaved a cough, snarling and wet in his throat. _How're you going to break the news to poor Robin that she's not breathing anymore?_

_Our priority is the safety of the living, and I am ordering you to leave this site!_

A senseless howl, raising prickles on her scorched, bloody flesh. He was angry. So angry. White-hot rage, spilling from his pores, mixed with a terrible wordless devastation.

Footsteps thudding beside her head (bang-bang). Hands underneath her skull, cradling her to his chest. His mouth, full, perfect, pressed against her lips: harsh and angry but the softness, the agonizing softness was so much the same. He was breathing life into her. Strong hands – not his – heaving him back, smashing handcuffs against his head, pulling him away from her.

_I'm not fucking leaving her!_

_This woman is dead and I swear to God if you don't obey my orders this second I will throw you into the flames myself!_

A sharp outburst of breath, the sound of flesh meeting bone with a sick _crack._ Shouts. His voice above all, raging, desperate.

Furious voices. Barking dogs. Gunshots. _Bang-bang-bang__._

_Bring the dogs!_

_No! No! I'm not leaving her! I'm not fu – _

Metal meeting flesh, bone. A hideous _snap. _Gunshots (_bang-bang_). More flames licking her legs.

_The woman – _

_Dead. Leave her. For God's sake, get out of the building! Get out!_

_She's a Titan!_

_She's dead, damnit! She's dead! My orders are to clear out!_

_The man – he – _

_You heard the commander! Evacuate! Get the hell out! _

No terror in her veins, in her heart. Her mind is so far gone.

His face. His voice. His eyes-cheeks-lips-nose-hands-chest-arms. So beautiful.

Her heart stutters. He loves her. Loved her. She knew it.

Too many flames. Too much blood. She wants him. She shudders with pain-pleasure at the memory of his lips against hers, his hands, his voice ordering her to live. Giving her orders she has no strength to obey.

A whisper, sliding from her ruptured lungs. He's miles away now, blood matting his dark hair, far from the smoke and flames and fury of the collapsed building. She knows he'll never hear her.

_I'll wait forever, _she murmurs soundlessly, blood shining on her lips_. For you. Forever and forever. _

A final _bang-bang__, _from her heart, her heart that loves him so.

_His face – his voice – forever she'll wait – forever – _

Then nothing.


	18. Changed

**Speedy/Cheshire, at last. Can you say _yum_? ;)**

**I really should be studying right now (Good Lord, I have _finals _tomorrow!!! :O) but I figured I might as well have some lovely reviews to come home to tomorrow afternoon. :)  
**

**Got lazy at some parts of this one - especially the beginning, ugh - because I'm not used to writing long-distance like this. Oh well. Overall, I'm mildly pleased with how this one turned out; not ecstatic. (I guess nothing can measure up to how much I adore Butterscotch, eh? :D)**

**Enjoy, loves. We're almost 20% of the way through!**

**Love and cupcakes,**

**--Phina  
**

--

**Prompt #19: Changed**

Yesterday evening, her clothes were spattered with blood and gore – her eyes bloodshot – her sleek black suit stained with smoke and pain. But that's what it took to pay the bills.

Tonight she has slipped on a pair of stiletto heels and is occupying herself breaking the hearts of every man in the ballroom of a certain family of French royalty. She smiles, amused, because there isn't a single corner of the world she can't blend into.

She's masquerading as a privileged foreign ambassador this evening. She's not employed, at least not tonight; she has no brilliant, dazzling scheme to lure the host into his own bedroom and rob him blind, deaf and dumb. She's attending this ball simply for the pleasure of wearing a skimpy dress and getting drunk on someone else's champagne.

Her face is impish, now, with the short slashes of ebony locks, close-cropped to her skull; slick, jagged spikes fly every which way. Her legs are tan and her eyes – green, now, because she likes it better than her own feeble brown – are bright and her mega-watt smile is carefully fixed on her face. But it's the dress she loves the most.

She's been intoxicated with silks for a few months now – the swish of it against the ground, the whisper of it against her skin – oh, she adores it. This particular gown is heartstoppingly lovely. A sumptuous red the color of her favorite wine, it shows her bronzed half-moons of breasts; plunges down just below her hips in the back and criss-crosses her entire spine with thin, shining ribbons of silk. Her eyes are smoky and her lips are sugared. She's a goddess, in this dress.

(She used to be different. Quick as a cat, with a smirking mask…oh, yes, she was quite different. She likes herself better now. )

She's danced countless waltzes with every businessman in the room: and now she twirls slowly, alone. The men, despite their alcohol-laced bravado, are too fragile for her feral taste in dance. She's kept her claws carefully sheathed all night – the strain of reigning in her constant energy high is exhausting.

She wants to _move. _To let go of her cagey precautions – to allow herself to succumb to the music; to kick her feet and grind her hips and toss her head back and _dance. _She wants to skim across the dance floor, to be a vapor, a stream of smoke – sinuous – capricious – free.

She wants – she wants –

Her eyes flick past a chiseled profile and snag there: a string of wool caught by a bramble.

She knows this profile. Strong, straight nose; an angular jaw, firm enough to form a right angle with his neck; shapely lips, full for a man, and thick eyelashes that always made her stomach churn with envy.

She wants _him. _

He looks just the same as six years ago, but taller, and perhaps a little more severe about the mouth. (How many times has he risked his life? How many times has he come within a split-second of death?) He's wearing a beautiful old tuxedo – vintage; she picked it out for him in celebration of their two-week anniversary; she remembers he made her pay cash for it – and chatting flippantly with three willowy girls in sheer dresses, two blondes and a brunette. One tosses back her sunlight hair and laughs, raucously. Her faded blue-green eyes bug unattractively out of her skull, but her lips are glossy and her stomach is flat and her breasts look ready to take over the room, so it shouldn't have been such a surprise that half of the male population in the room had their eyes fixed on various parts of her anatomy.

He grins and tucks a lock of hair behind the brunette's ear – ever the playboy – and his gaze drifts from her face, across the room, like he could feel her standing there, watching him –

Emerald meets emerald as their gazes lock. He doesn't look surprised in the least to see her standing in the midst of a crowd of rich Parisians. The blonde girl follows his gaze – a flash of rage flits across her heart-shaped face as she sees catches sight of the wine-silk dress. She takes his chin in her hand, smiles coyly, but he ignores her completely as he strides across the dance floor.

"Would you care to dance, _mademoiselle_?" His voice is so similar to how she remembers it – low and husky, dangerously seductive. She thinks of melted chocolate and plush velvet cushions. There's a teasing tilt to his chin that she remembers vividly from their lazy days in Rome.

She smiles, lets her fingers dance across the neckline of her dress. "You're asking me? _Really?_" She gives him a luscious wink. "I don't think I've had quite enough to drink to justify that sort of behavior."

She can see his eyes glittering mischievously. He always enjoyed these cat-and-mouse games. He doesn't realize – not yet – that this cat-and-mouse game involves _two _cats, and one of them is just as smart as she had been when she wore the mask.

"Some wine, then?" He snaps his fingers, and a waiter appears instantly at his elbow.

She accepts a delicate crystal flute filled with frothy champagne, grins at him over the rim of the glass. "You must be eager to sweep me onto the dance floor," she comments lightly.

"Terribly." He takes the glass from between her fingers and sets it onto the passing tray of the maître d', then replaces it with another.

She sighs and rolls her eyes good-naturedly, giving up, and twirls him onto the dance floor.

He spins her slowly for a few minutes, thoughtfully, his palm rough and warm in hers. "Have we met?" he asks, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his full lips. His eyes are just as intense – sparking with ice-fire – as she remembers. Some things never changed.

"Mmm…I can't seem to remember any doe-eyed redheads in the recent past," she purrs. She tilts her head up to give him a teasing sideways glance, watches his pupils dilate with hunger. "Of course, what with all this wine you've pressed upon me, I'm not surprised in the least that I don't recall anything from the last three months of my life."

He had always been tricky that way. So had she. She hasn't taken a sip of wine the entire night.

He draws her closer: there's barely a whisper of breath between them as they waltz. (He smells like cinnamon and ice mixed together: it reminds her of warm nights in cafés, drinking ridiculously expensive espressos in cups too small for his fingers.) Their rhythm is fluid; their bodies move sinuously, like twin coils of smoke. He dips her so far down that she thinks her spine will snap from the pressure, but she knows it looks fantastic, so she smiles icily through the pain. When he lifts her back up, she slides deftly between his legs and twists to her feet, tight dress be damned. Her fingers run over the wideness of his shoulders, feeling the contours of muscles under her palms – they feel just as they did, six years ago. She sighs happily. Some things never changed.

He turns to face her and gathers her back into his arms – they've missed only a few beats – and they fall back into step.

"That was a daring move," he murmurs into her ear, and she bats her eyelashes mischievously.

"I've always been one to take risks," she whispers back, and then spins deftly out of his grasp. She kicks off her heels and winks voluptuously at him. "Catch me if you can, love."

A waiter passes in front of him, obscuring his view of her, and by the time he can see again, she's gone.

--

He finds her, of course, like he always did: and like a spark meeting gasoline – uncontrollable – out of control – they explode.

They find their way, blindly, through the anthill of the mansion. Hearts thudding – pulses racing – breath coming in harsh, sharp pants – it's just like it always was. Her lips are fierce on his. His hands scrape against the smooth skin of her back – scrabbling past the slender ribbons lacing up her spine – scratching, marking, _claiming. _

She finds she does not want to be claimed.

They stumble together into a dark room, alone, except for a stuffed zebra head staring mournfully down at them from the far wall. (It's a voyeuristic sort of feeling – but she's not surprised that, measured against the steady pressure of Roy's lips on hers, it doesn't distract her in the slightest.)

He pins her forearms against the wall. The cool stone is a welcome relief to her skin, blazing red-hot from his touch. His lips move along her jaw – tracing the familiar path of her cheek, her neck, her ear – familiar, because you never quite forgot the topography of a face you'd sketched out with your own lips.

His lips sear the corded muscles in her neck; touching, tasting, scorching their way to her mouth. She sighs lightly and he kisses her smiling mouth.

"You've missed me."

His red-gold hair is silk between her fingertips. "Mmm," she murmurs into the empty space behind his ear. "You must be mistaken. I don't think we've ever met."

His fingers spread-eagle across her back as he kisses her softly, blistering her lips. Heat, everywhere – like fire –starting deep in her belly, rising – warming her throat, her skin, her hands. She pulls him closer, sipping his kisses with a hungry mouth. He breaks away for a second to feather her neckline with kisses – soft, deep ones that leave rosy circles behind on her bronzed skin. "Then I should ask…do you make it a point to seduce complete strangers?"

He's playing along, just to make her smile. He was always funny that way.

"Only when they particularly intrigue me," she breathes. His eyes flutter open – betrayal stabbing through them – and she wonders how he could have possibly been so naïve as to think her chaste throughout their parting.

A twinge of regret pricks at her chest.

She doesn't have an answer that will make him happy – she doesn't have an answer that will justify the files she stole from men she slept with, from men she wooed into their marriage beds. It was a sad sort of irony that he – the playboy – had managed to stay faithful when she – who never stayed in one city for more than a week – could not.

The only answer she has is _forgive and forget_ – what a hypocrite she is – so she kisses both of his eyelids shut, reminding him wordlessly that the greatest joy can sometimes be experienced only with closed eyes.

"You are _particularly_ intriguing," she murmurs, as if that could make it all better. Her fingers trail down his strong forearms, curl into his hands like they had never been separated. "So intriguing that you're beginning to frighten me."

He swallows, hard – locking away the betrayal inside of him.

He had probably expected as much anyway.

"So you're one of those women who're afraid of commitment," he says lightly, teasingly. His voice is just as steady as ever. "For better or for worse, I've always been attracted to those types."

The fire between them burns hotter. She untucks his dress shirt, slides a palm under and lays it flat against his chest – feels the beat of his heart. The heart that belongs to her. The heart she'd never allowed him give away completely. And tonight would be no different. Some things never changed.

"It's a shame they can never seem to stick around, then," she says quietly. She's forgotten to play make-believe; she's forgotten to pretend she doesn't know him. She has never seen him this vulnerable in her life, even when she flicked her own butterfly knife against his bare throat; even when she nicked his jugular and watched in horror as his heartbeat pumped itself to death; even when she wrapped their linen sheets around his neck and begged him to hold on, to hold fast, to be strong.

She wonders why she never allowed herself to be the one who needed saving.

One last kiss, then – she presses it to his dry lips, lets the warmth consume her for a final, soaring moment.

His eyes are huge and dark in his face – like wet emeralds – rimmed with a fringe of thick lashes. "You're not leaving."

She curls a hand around one of the buttons on his ruffled dress shirt, holding onto the smooth ivory as if it was anchoring her to his body, his heart. "Did you expect any differently?"

"I just found you."

She holds him in place for a moment with her silence, then smiles widely – wide as the Cheshire Cat that was her namesake. "And I was just leaving."

She presses her fingers to her lips, brushes them lightly across his cheekbone – he shivers – and then she leaves him standing in the dark room with no one but the stuffed zebra on the wall to see his shame.

--

Winding her way through the stone corridors, she can hear him behind her.

"Jade, we can make this work. I didn't travel halfway around the world in fourteen hours to drink expensive coffee – I _knew _you would be here."

She speeds up slightly; ducks through a wide, arched doorway and into a shadowy hall.

He sighs, and the sound echoes through the passageways. "Listen to me."

She smirks to herself and doubles back through another hallway.

"The Titans are regrouping, Jade. We're taking down the Brotherhood once and for all." His voice catches. "Come with me. Come with _us. _I know you want to change."

She pauses for a split-second. It's a tantalizing thought: giving the metaphorical equivalent of a bitch-slap to her nastiest employers to date.

Tempting.

But not worth the trouble.

She slips through another darkened stone room, lifting the trailing silk of her dress to her thighs, feeling the curves of the invisible furniture with sensitive fingertips. She can hear him behind her, hear his quiet breathing and hushed footsteps. His icy cologne prickles at her memories. It's as if she had never stolen his password from his briefcase and used it to clear all of the charges on the Justice League mainframe from her alias; as if she had never given him a toxic kiss goodbye, her mouth slicked with the poisonous lipstick he had given her as their one-week anniversary gift; as if she had never left him, paralyzed, tangled in the still-warm sheets of their shared bed; as if he hadn't spent the last six years chasing her down to this gala in Nice, France.

As if she hadn't let him.

She pauses by a lighted doorway – lets him steal a glance of her silhouette – and laughs quietly behind her hand. His breathing speeds as he sprints towards her lighted profile – she smirks as she sidesteps with a neat salsa move, ducking into the shadows as she has always done. The wind of his passage is an inch from her hip as he races past her, intent on only the lighted doorway.

She laughs again, more softly, and lets herself smile – just for a moment – as she thinks about how she loves him so. Loves him so much that she always lets him find her. Loves him so much that she never lets him _quite _close enough.

She slips back through the darkened room and finds her way outside, the silken-wine dress gleaming tantalizingly in the moonlight. The wind is chill and the night is pierced through with small barbed-wire stars. It's beautiful.

She smiles blissfully, waltzing slowly down the grand driveway. The lights fade behind her. The shadows hug her close, like they always do.

Gravel crunches frantically behind her – a cinnamon-ice smell meets her nose in an exhilarating swirl. She glances behind, sees his lithe, shadowy frame – blows him a kiss he'll never see; a kiss that he'd feel anyway, because the pull between them was undeniable and they could never exist apart. They were but two halves to a whole.

"I'm not letting you go," he calls, unruffled, but she can hear the old determination in his voice, the fierce passion that bleeds into everything he loves. "I'm not going to leave you until you come with me."

She lopes into the great woods surrounding the mansion, hears the soft thud of his footsteps behind her. He was close – so close – but she feels like laughing because she knows she is fast enough. Fast to lead him, fast enough to make him chase her from here to kingdom come.

Perhaps, _perhaps _– if he's swift enough, strong enough – she might let him catch up. Might let him seduce her over to the light side.

Perhaps.

She listens to his heartbeat for a split-second. It's a lovely sound. Or maybe she just loves him.

A smile curves her lips.

She knew he would follow. She always lets him.

Some things never changed.

--

**Just because I'm bored, who do you think the random blonde girl was? :D**


	19. Wish

**I missed my one-year anniversary on FF. :( So here's a little piece to make up for it.**

**Also, this is the first time in at least three chapters that I've actually typed out the characters names. Try not to piddle on yourselves in shock. ;)**

**Love and cupcakes,**

**Phina  
**

**--**

**Prompt #20: Wish  
**

The summer sun ached against the deep-red backs of her closed eyelids, and Rachel made a small sound of discomfort. Heat prickled against her fair skin. She could feel it burning at the smooth ivory of her forearms.

She had always hated the sun, and it must not have liked her either. It burned away the whiteness of her skin – made it red-hot and itchy instead. It liked Kori better.

Dick adored it. Rachel gritted her small teeth (only one of her baby teeth had fallen out so far: she was hopelessly behind in the kindergarten race. Dick had lost three already, and Vic was even more grown-up with five big teeth already grown in) and stretched out further on her grassy lawn, the lavender of her T-shirt riding up a little on her tummy. She could see a sliver of white flesh in a gap between her soft cotton shorts and T-shirt.

She wanted the sun to like her. She wanted to have brown skin like him.

Dick was farther down the street, pedaling furiously on his red plastic toddler bike. She watched him struggle through the thick summer heat – his arms bronzed and beautiful – and sighed, scooching back on the grass.

Kori was squatting at the end of the street, her thick red blanket of hair hanging in front of her face as she poked at a big beetle on the sidewalk.

Rachel had always loved Kori's hair. She wore it long and loose, like a red cape – like the warrior princesses in Gar's comic books. Rachel once tried to let her hair down like Kori's. At first it felt like she was Rapunzel, letting her long waves of hair float down to a prince. Then it tangled hopelessly, and when she tried to brush it out, it left big wads of purple hair behind in the comb. She made her mother cut it short after that.

Kori looked up in surprise when Dick pedaled by her, and then her face split open in a wide smile. She already had three gaps where her teeth were growing in.

And Dick – strong, funny, beautiful Dick – grinned toothily back.

Rachel watched them from her seat on the lawn, wishing she had Kori's big green eyes and toothy smile and brown skin. She looked at her white legs, peeking out like sticks from the blue cotton shorts, and criss-crossed-applesauced them underneath her.

Kori giggled. Rachel wondered what Dick had said. She wished she was there laughing with him.

Dusty-dry grass scratched at her rough summer feet, but she could hardly feel it – she'd walked on hot pavement, rocky lawns, the sharp woodchips of the playground and the cold green supermarket tiles to toughen them up. Dick liked it best when his heels were brown and leathery.

Her feet always hurt now, but not as much as before. Before, they'd been pale white, like the bottom of a snail. They'd turned pink first, then red, and finally a weak-chocolate-milk color.

Kori was looking up at Dick through her long lashes, like a baby deer. She was too beautiful.

Rachel yanked a dandelion from the scratchy lawn. She held it tightly with both chubby hands, squeezing the stem close to her heart, which hurt her chest with its _boom-boom-boom_ inside of her. Her eyes shut; her skin stung where the sun hit it. She thought of Dick and his plastic bike – thought of riding it with him, laughing, smiling, adding the strength of her skinny white legs to the pedals.

_I wish…I wish…_

It was too much even to wish for, so she tucked the dandelion behind her ear, saving it for later. She opened her eyes and squinted in the glare.

Dick grabbed Kori's hand.

Rachel only realized later that she was ripping the grass to shreds with her too-pale fingers. She looked down, saw a firetruck-red drop of blood squeeze out of her fingertip, and felt like crying.

--

_It was a year ago, on a lazy summer afternoon before Rachel had started kindergarten. She and Dick were kneeling on the sidewalk, drawing with her new chalks. They were pretty: the shape of the big carrot sticks her mother peeled in the sink, and every color of the rainbow, except for white. (She threw the white one away because it looked too much like the color of her skin.)_

_Dick pursed his lips, squinting down at the pavement, and began to draw determinedly with the blue chalk. She watched, fascinated – his fingers were smeared ocean-blue from the dust._

_She watched a puffy half-moon take shape under his hands. Inspired, she took the orange and yellow chalks and drew and drew and drew, rubbing the colors into the sidewalk with her fingers until they were raw, bleeding, and colored like flames. _

"_Look, Dick!" she said, smiling. "I drew a sun." And she had. It was big and round and beautiful._

_Dick took one look and threw her chalks down angrily, letting them shatter into jewel-bright chunks on the sidewalk. "You always make them better than me," he yelled, blue eyes crackling like lightning. He stormed off into his house and slammed the door shut._

_Rachel sat in a puddle of chalk dust, trying not to cry, because all she had wanted to do was make something beautiful for him – all she had wanted to do was bring some sun into his life._

--

Rachel looked at the boy she'd loved since she knew the meaning of the word – watched him giggle and clumsily kiss Kori on the cheek. Kori blushed, but even from three houses down Rachel could see her smiling giddily.

The dandelion was still tucked behind her ear. She reached up and pulled it from a silky tangle of purple hair. The green stem was the same color as Kori's eyes.

Rachel stared hard at the dandelion and blew against it with all her might. A dry breeze picked up and carried the white fluffy cloud away, away, away, carrying every dream of Dick from every night of her six years to a faraway place. A place where hopes and dreams floated on white dandelion clouds, blown in on peppermint winds. A place where any girl could be Rapunzel and let down her hair, like a princess: not just the pretty ones with long, shiny red curls. A place where boys were beautiful, too, with brown arms and plastic bikes and big blue eyes and gap-tooth smiles.

A place where wishes come true.

A place that had never existed, and most likely never would.

Rachel followed the feathery white cloud with her eyes until it grew tired and drifted softly to the ground. Then she flung the dandelion stalk to the sun-baked earth, ground it into the dirt with her summer-tough heel, walked purposefully up the porch steps, and closed the screen door on her dreams.


	20. Time

**It's been a month of writer's block, and I finally squirted something out. :)**

**It's totally pointless. And a little sad. And a little fluffy. And I'm late for swim team - and I have two projects due tomorrow - and science fair - and I haven't done my homework yet. So, it's rushed.**

**But I kinda like it. **

**Speedy/Rae fluff. Excuse the roughness...I didn't run this by anyone. **

**(Oh, and I'm fourteen now!!)**

**Love and cupcakes,**

**--Phina  
**

--

After the fourth night of careful planning, Speedy found Raven on the roof.

She probably didn't realize how angular her posture was, he mused – all bent knees and elbows, all right angles. The moonlight threw fractured shadows across her cheekbones, turning skin silver and silhouette black.

She looked up when he sat down beside her, but didn't say anything. It was too quiet for words. Waves slapped against the side of the Tower, and Speedy could just barely see the glimmer of frothy water from their seat near the edge of the roof.

He leaned forward a little, resting elbows on his knees. "A little too stuffy for you inside?"

Raven turned back to look at the fading horizon line, shivered briefly in the chill night air. "A little."

Titans East had flown over for the weekend. Suffice to say, it was like a day in the psych ward – fun, fun, fun.

He glanced over at the pinks and yellows and oranges of the sunset, trying to figure her out, trying to figure out why she would come up _here, _of all places.

"Is it the light you like?"

Her eyebrows crinkled a little, and he clarified, "You know…the light at this time of day. The sunset. Whatever."

She shrugged, letting the silence stretch on until it almost breathed. He was just about to give up on her saying anything when she finally leaned back a little, relaxing the sharp angles of her posture. "Sort of. Mostly it's just quiet." She flexed her fingers – _pop pop pop _– and sighed. "No one really likes it up here anymore. Not since Terra…left."

Speedy could see the remains of a tattered volleyball net; abandoned sporting equipment; put two and two together. "You guys hung out here a lot with her? Played volleyball and stuff?"

Raven nodded and rested her chin on top of her knees. Her expression was wistful, soft-edged. Speedy wondered if she knew how lushly attractive she was, or if she was just immune.

He had been kept mostly in the dark about the whole Terra deal, but it was most definitely a Bad Thing, and most likely Dangerous Territory, so he hurried to change the subject. Leaning back on his hands, Speedy remarked, "You know, people always romanticize this whole idea about sunsets and it being the end of a day, the start of a new beginning, whatever. 'Oh, look at this fabulous sunset, it's _so_ gorgeous, _so_ romantic.'" He grinned at her profile and nodded with his chin at the pinkish, orangeish sky. "You know what that sky looks like to me? Cat vomit. The fishy kind."

Raven laughed – actual, real laughter – the kind that tilted her lips up, lit up her whole face.

Speedy grinned. _Success._ "You see that color pink? Right up by that airplane? That's honest-to-God Friskies Canned Tuna, right there."

She crossed her legs, pointed up at the sky. "You know what causes the sunset?" He looked at her sideways, out of the corner of his eye. "Pollution. From hundreds of years of camp fires and factories and technology." His expression must have been skeptical, because she added, "Yeah, I didn't believe it at first either. So, once again, we've made something gorgeous by killing the earth. Whoopee."

There was a pause.

"That is…incredibly depressing," Speedy pointed out.

"Mm-hmm."

"And…" he paused, thinking. "You just referred to yourself as a human."

Oh, good God. He could kick himself. Right in the groin.

Raven's eyes darkened. "I'm a half-demon, Speedy. I have enough _human_ in me to appreciate the environmental crisis on this planet."

"Right, right." He was going to have to do Heimlich on himself to get the foot out of his mouth.

They sat in silence for a while, Speedy simmering in mild humiliation. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye – her legs bare to the chill night air, her cheeks stung slightly pink by the breeze. His fingers itched. He wanted to trace patterns on her skin. Glowing, glimmering patterns.

The silence was so loud, it was deafening.

He was about to make an excuse and leave her to her thoughts when she stirred, just slightly.

"Do you really believe that, Speedy?"

"Hmm?"

"About the sunset being the end of a day. And sunrise being the beginning."

Speedy uncrossed his legs and leaned all the way back, the metal roof cold against his spine. "Oh, I don't know. I guess it used to be. You know, in the old days, when people went to bed with the moon and were up with the sun. It was the end of the line for them." He stretched his arms, feeling the flex and flow of the muscles, voice going hazy. "But we've got all this wonderful new technology now, the stuff that's ruining the environment –" he grinned slowly at her, "– and we've all kind of turned into night owls. So…no. I believe that the day starts again when you let it."

Raven flipped onto her side, cheek resting on her palm – a beautiful S of a girl. Her hair was star-dusted, her skin silvery-smooth in the dark. The urge to trail his fingers along her forearms – to touch her – snapped its jaws again, impatient. It wasn't used to being denied, and it hung, dominant and demanding, in the night air.

"What about you?" he asked, turning onto his side so he could watch her expression. "Beginnings or ends? Yesterdays or tomorrows? Which one would you choose?"

She shifted slightly. "You should know that," she said softly. "I'll always choose yesterdays. I'll always want to fix what I broke."

He heard the whisper beneath the whisper. She would always want to fix herself – she was, in essence, a broken thing.

"Did you ever think that maybe some things are more beautiful when they're not whole?" he asked her, quietly – wanting to know the answer. "Did you ever think that maybe you'll never get a chance to go back? That maybe you were broken for a reason – and it's up to you to fix yourself?"

He didn't want the words to sound harsh, and, instinctively, she understood that.

Her eyes flickered up for a second. "Will you help me?" she whispered. "Will you help me fix myself?"

Speedy reached across the gap that separated them and took her hand – spanned the gap. "Of course I will."

They leaned forward, hesitantly – so close that Raven's eyelashes dusted his cheek.

His heart gave one hard thump.

"Which one do _you _want, Speedy?" Raven asked, almost soundlessly, so close to him that he could feel her breath tickling his cheek, feel her heartbeat, close to his. "Tomorrow? Yesterday?"

Speedy pressed his lips to her forehead, just once – feeling the coolness of the focus stone leave a ghost on his mouth. "I would choose this," he breathed. "This second. This moment in time."

He twined fingers in her hair, spider-webs of silk strands – and even when the alarms sounded, even when the perfect stillness of the night was shattered by fire alarms and ambulances, neither of them looked away.


	21. Tomorrow

**It's been too long. Waaaay too long.**

**And I'm super sorry. Like, seriously.**

**Every day since I last posted, I sat myself down in front of the computer, and told myself **–** in a very strict, no-nonsense tone of voice **–** that TODAY WAS THE DAY. The DAY TO WRITE. FINALLY.**

**Um, sure. Didn't happen. Had mad writer's block. Hence...the non-updating-ness.**

**But I found this _thing_, from manymany months ago, saved on my parents' computer. I barely remember writing it. It scares me. A lot. And when I read it at eleven at night, I got all teary and had a flash of those _oh-my-goodness-why-is-my-empty-house-suddenly-so-terrifying?_ late-night jitters. But, hopefully this'll tide you over until I finish up IAmTotallyKewlio's gift, which is...**

**-drumroll-  
**

**Kid Flash/Jinx! Whoo! :D**

**Anyway. Enjoy. Be scared. Heaven knows I was, and I wrote it. (And here I have to give this a disparaging glance for the plot-less angst, because I really need to broaden my genres. Also, I feel compelled to add that when you look at the traditional tone of Cy/Bee fics, this version probably portrays them both as probablymaybereally OOC. But, what can you do?)**

**Have fun anyway. :)  
**

**Love 'n cupcakes, Phina**

**--  
**

The screaming starts at nine in the morning.

It wasn't like this before. They used to save it for nighttime, when they were in bed, whispering sharp words under the covers before simultaneously turning their backs to each other, muffling their anger with blankets and pillows. And when there were too many words for nighttime, when the anger overflowed the one-hour-a-day they gave it, they allowed it a few minutes in the afternoon, just a couple of minutes to snap at each other before doing the typical kiss-and-make-up.

When they were younger, they never considered their differing priorities to be anything important. When they argued, it was cool, it was cute – just another "Oh, look, they must really care about each other to be so open about their opinions!" photo-op of a situation.

It was more than that. A lot more.

And somehow, the anger grew.

It was too big for just nighttime, too big for just a lunchtime spat. It flooded their days. It flooded their minds. They forgot they loved each other. They forgot every sweet word, every beautiful moment, every good-natured prank that had taken their separate bodies and fused them into one unbreakable link. Their angry words turned to angry shrieks. Their lover's spats turned to seething fights.

And now it had come to this.

Screaming.

"Damnit, Karen! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Her fingernails drove into the softness of her palm, leaving four reddened half-moons behind on the caramel skin. "_Me?_ I'm not the one who conveniently forgot about our responsibilities!"

Vic slammed a fist down onto the counter, knocking a flower-filled vase that his mother had given Karen as an anniversary gift to the floor. It shattered as it collided with the linoleum, a jumble of rose petals and iridescent blue glass.

It was her heart, Karen thought wildly – her stupid, emotional heart, her heart that loved Vic too much. Her heart that loved him until it broke, her heart that loved him until it become nothing more than a shattered pile of what-could-have-been.

"I didn't _forget,_" he snarled. "In case _you've _forgotten, I have bigger responsibilities than locking up every crappy villain that happens to pr – "

Karen pushed him into the wall, her eyes fiery. "That girl was _raped, _Vic! How do you think she feels right now, huh? How do you think _I _felt, when I had to sit down with her at the station and hand her tissues as she cried onto my shirt? When I had to explain to her why we couldn't be there to save her? When I had to shoot her full of morphine because she tried to kill herself with one of my stingers?"

He knocked her hands away. "You should have been there faster."

"What the _hell_, Vic? You should have gotten up off your ass and changed your goal in life from chugging a six-pack without passing out to being an actual hero!"

"You have no idea what my goal in life is!" he bellowed.

She punched him.

He stumbled backwards into the gleaming wood cabinets – found his balance again in a second, his eyes flinty and unreadable. His hands curled into fists, every muscle tensed, body stiff and terrifying. She was reminded in a gut-wrenching flash of how _huge _he was, how _strong. _

She took a step back – afraid of him – knowing she shouldn't be – feeling it anyway. Fear roiled in her belly, choking her throat, gripping her insides with thorns and ice. She couldn't move. She couldn't think.

They stood there for an eternity of nine seconds, frozen.

He moved stiffly, too-controlled, when he finally snatched his beautiful old leather jacket off the back of the kitchen chair. "I'll see you tomorrow," he finally said, and his words were a lash turned onto her own skin – so cold, so furious, that she felt herself shrink back against the wall. "But consider us now and forever divorced."

He slammed the back door so hard that the hinges twisted away from the wall. Every pane of glass smashed into the floor – and the only thing Karen could think of to do was sink to the floor, feeling hot, clumsy tears stumble down her cheeks; wondering how long it would take for her to be so dehydrated that she could no longer scream; wondering how the broken glass would feel slashing open her own skin; wondering if he'd care if she died; and, finally, wondering if it was so strange – with all that had happened – to hope that tomorrow would never, never come.


	22. Journey

**I have no words left. I am running on vapors. But it actually feels really, really good.**

**The following drabble is about 50 percent of the reason ****I have not gotten more than seven hours of sleep for the past month. It is also what has kept me going through tortuous, eighth-period Algebra 1. For that, I am grateful.**** Also, it would not have been possible without the amazingly insightful input SylverEyes offers, free of charge, guilt and time restraints. That's the best gift anyone **_**anywhere **_**has ever given me. You go, dude.**

**And now, without further ado, I present to you…Starfire and Red X. Because I love them dearly, and they put up with all the abuse. Amen.  
**

--

**Prompt #23: Journey**

From the very beginning, she knew that their course wouldn't be easy, wouldn't be happy, wouldn't be the stuff of fairytales. She knew that their train would probably careen off the tracks and they would be left with a smoking wreckage of what-could-have-been. But she knew, too, that their personal catastrophes would be beautiful in their chaos, and so she purchased a train ticket and let her cares blow away with the wind that swept across the desolate tracks of what used to be her life.

And later, when it seemed it might be the end, she could not bring herself to regret the ride that brought her there.

--

She first met him when he wore a mask and suit and belt. His voice was low and amused; his body was long and lanky. He trailed a finger up and down her jaw and called her 'sugar' and 'dollface'; mocked her team, mocked the very world.

She hated him fiercely. She also wanted to rip the suit from his body and crush herself against him, devour him whole, gorge herself on the taste of his mouth and skin.

She made herself sick – sick with shame, sicker with longing.

--

The truth is that she likes the way he pins her arms to the wall and leaves her helpless against the ravishing crusade of his teeth-mouth-hands; that she is not a glass figurine underneath his palms, but instead an unconquered land, a realm now scuffed and worn by the countless battle-marches of his lips. She likes the way he is never sated, that he is always lean and hungry; he feasts upon her lips and drinks in her gaze.

He presses threats and kisses in equal measure against her taut copper skin, and in his arms, she loses sight of herself.

The feeling is not good or right, but it is all she has.

--

He calls her ribs xylophone keys and plays music on them with not-quite-careful fingertips.

--

She lent him her heart for a day. He never gave it back. To this day he's unable to decide if it was his inner pickpocket talking, or just his fondness for bright, shiny toys.

--

The day she met him, she reminded herself to clench her fists tight and her heart tighter. He did the same. They buckled on their protective shells, using wit for swords and sarcasm as shields, and then their hearts and minds clashed, sprays of sparks burning their lips and eyes.

His armor was stronger than hers. She bruised herself on him without knowing why.

--

At the very beginning, she required nothing of him, and he required nothing of her, and they were fine – they were good, great, wonderful, tired, bored, happy, struggling. They were any adjective that filled the silence.

They might have woken up early and maybe she cooked eggs or they could have opened the refrigerator and seen nothing there and drank watery, distractedly-made coffee and gone their separate ways. Their separate mornings stacked higher and higher until a wall formed between them, silence and suppressed emotions acting as bricks and cement. She didn't know which subway he walked to and he couldn't have traced her bus route on a map.

Their wavelengths touched, but were never the same.

They always met again as the sun breathed a goodbye kiss to the sky and the moon glimmered with stolen radiance. They might have sat down and pretended to be a normal couple; perhaps they made and ate dinner – perhaps they flirted over fettuccine – or they might have just thrown away the make-believe and shed their second skins, rubbing away at their outside masks until maybe a glimmer of _something, _something_ real _peeked through.

But by then, the day was already starting over again.

And their chance of connection was washed away by a river of bad coffee and distracted tears for her long-dead lover – a lifeboat that capsized on their ocean of separation. It was never to be seen again.

--

Eventually, they learned to make their own opportunities, lifeboat be damned.

--

The night they first found themselves making love – meshed deep within in a smoke-laced haze of thrashing dance-music and splintered lights and fragmented sightsoundsmelltastetouch – she didn't realize she had soaked the pillowcase with tears until he tilted her chin up with careful fingers and kissed all the jewel-drops away. His face was vulnerable for a breath of a second – so helpless she was ashamed. His eyes were liquid topaz; his hands gentle against the curve of her waist.

"It's okay," he whispered, and – bewildered – he held her as she wept. "We can stop."

But it wasn't okay, and she didn't want to stop.

She shivered in his arms until she found herself nodding as she sobbed, fighting the strange, crushing grief and memories of another face, another body, different dark hair; but their masks of secrecy and silence were so much the same, and she couldn't find the border lines where one man left off and another began.

She let him cradle her head against his bare chest, whispering pleasepleaseplease – it'stoomuch – _you're_toomuch – I'm notgoodenough – notstrongenough.

(She wasn't strong enough for either of them, was she?)

His face hardened in that moment – accepting the rejection – and a forged mask of indifference covered his eyes like shutters.

She had guard rails against devotion. It only stood to reason that his would be better.

--

Eventually she slept with him. It was only a matter of time.

When she reached ecstasy, she screamed the wrong man's name.

--

After a year, she imagined that she was wiser than the day they met– _("You always were a quick learner," he whispered as they sank into both his sheets and her body_) – or maybe she was just more jaded.

Maybe she didn't know him at all.

She didn't know his mind. He kept it carefully guarded, forever shrouded in sarcasm and secrecy. He locked his privacy inside years ago and made quite certain to throw away the key.

But she knew his body as well as she knew her own.

It was a small consolation, but she liked that she could trace the topography of the muscles along his back and not lose herself along the longitude of his shoulders. She knew the way his spine crrk-crackled when he was cautious, the way his voice turned soft and smoky when he was sleepy – like smoothing a velvet comforter across a bed – and the way he relaxed his hands, joint by joint, as they sat entwined on the tiny couch shoved up against the wall in their two-room apartment.

Most of all, she knew to expect nothing from him. Because she knew that the moment you expect things from someone, you are bound to them: you belong to them, in a way that no amount of sex could produce.

She told herself that she would never belong to him. She would never allow it.

She tasted that lie on the tip of her tongue, and found that she did not mind the taste.

--

The first thing she learned about him was that he kept his face blank and hid away his eyes, covering them like they covered their apartment's windows with venetian blinds. She hated it. (She still hates it.)

She is a creature ruled by sunlight and sensation, and her thoughts and feelings are volatile. Fiery. She blistered him with emotion before he realized his ice shell was thawing; after that, he made sure to keep his distance.

--

Some days – rare afternoons – she couldn't hold back the rage. It poured from her, like shafts of sunlight breaking through the pores of her skin. She screamed; he trembled with contained fury. Her rage was fierce and pure – sunbeams – but his anger was darkness she regretted every word she flung at him as soon as she let it fly, sharp-edged and meant to bruise.

He rarely shouted back, and she was terrified for him to. She knew his words could be time-bombs, tick-tick-ticking in her chest until the explosion, leaving her scarred and changed.

--

No matter what they do or say, though – no matter how terrible, no matter how appalling – one truth remains sacred and unchangeable. She will never leave him. He is her only link to the man she lost.

--

For three years, she did not surrender to him.

Her ribs were xylophone keys, but he never played a true melody on them. She turned away from his touch before he found the chords, and he was left with a broken cadence.

Her skin bruised on contact with his, but she was left with the fierce satisfaction of marking him in the exact same places. (When they woke every morning after, they lined up their fingers to matching blueberry stains on each others' skins. The ache never faded, and pride was satisfied all around.)

Her body was a conquered country, but her heart was an island. She never allowed it to float away.

But what she didn't realize was that time was slowly eroding away at the guard rails around her soul and his careful boundaries were more than a psychological Band-Aid over the wounds of her heart.

--

"Give me a year," he told her once. "Three-hundred and sixty days, give or take. I bet I could make you happy. I bet…"

She leaned against the counter, wearing only jeans and a bra, and filled a glass halfway with water, took a few sips, and dumped the rest down the drain. "Do not," she said. "Do not speak of this." _Do not speak of him. _

"It would be easy," he said, moving closer, letting his fingers trail up and down her neck in slow, tingling circles. "Natural. Like breathing."

This was an uncharted territory, and she found herself skittering away from the boundary lines. Happiness, fulfillment, understanding – their maps of these lands were blank, filled with nothing but empty oceans and the broken wreckages of failed voyages.

She shivered involuntarily as he painted strokes of fire up and down her skin. "That is what worries me. To be happy is…betrayal. It would not be fair to him."

True, but not an entire _truth_. She was more afraid of his motives. Why did he want her happiness? It was simple. He didn't want her to be happy; he wanted to win. She was a challenge he had yet to overcome.

And another unwieldy truth: underneath his hands and mouth, she knew she was a challenge he was capable of conquering.

He replaced his fingers with his lips, kissing her skin into a delicious rawness. "I never promised to fight fair." He pressed up against her back. The warmth of his lips was a drug. "He would _want _you happy. Bird Boy could see the sense in that…I'm what you need. I'm where you need me."

He was always one to fight dirty.

"That…is _wrong_," she murmured, holding herself rigid, away from his body. It was too easy to let go, she reminded herself – too easy to forget the past; too easy to forget previous mistakes that belonged to both of them, mistakes like late dinners and forgotten appointments and long nights on dark streets and the whisper of bat wings brushing gently against the sky lights as she wept over the broken body of her love…

She counted seven kisses before he had an answer for her.

"It's not right, but it's good," he told her, finally. An eighth kiss – pressed gently between her shoulder blades –and then: "I'm all you've got now."

She stiffened, lightning bolts searing at her skin, fingers curling taut against his wrist. She squeezed harder than she could have. It brought her an irritable satisfaction.

"I do not depend on you," she reminded him, the words stilted and angry in her mouth. "You have no ownership of me."

He was silent for a moment. She could imagine the steel blades in his mouth, ready to cut her down with jagged, truthful edges, but instead he laughed quietly.

"I never pretended to own you," he said. His voice was bleak, but he gave another prickly laugh. "And I'll be damned if you have any claim over me. But I swear to God, I'll make you happy. I owe that much to that bastard of yours."

_He is not mine anymore, _she told him in her mind. _No one can govern the dead._

But because she was free – because she had no place to be except the loop of his arms and, startlingly, because the thought of her dead fiancée was one she no longer found herself cringing from – she found that the equation was simple. He was warm and she was cold and it was easy to relax into the taut muscles in his stomach and curve her spine to fit against his chest. She didn't turn to face him, though. She didn't let him see the truth in her eyes, because the truth was that yes, it would be very easy to let herself be happy again…and yes, it would be very easy to sink into his warmth and never surface.

"I do not want to forget him," she told him instead, filling the water glass up again.

"I'd never let you," he promised, pressing slow, drugging kisses against her skin, ready to lead her into their bedroom. And, really, he _was_ warm, and she _was_ cold, and the bed was soft and the path to a moment of happiness was blocked only by two zippers and a button-down shirt…

And really, would _he –_ the final remnants of her life Before, the guiding force of the Titans – have begrudged her happiness? Would he really have grasped her so tight?

Would he have allowed her to sacrifice her future for the memories of their shared past?

_No, _she answered her past. And then – as she reached for her future with hands that trembled with both exhilaration and apprehension, terror and triumph – she looked her future square in the eye, and told it _Yes. _

_--_

That afternoon, she let her both her reluctance and her remembrances wash down the drain with the rest of the water in her glass. In his arms, she found what she had lost. The bittersweet chord of rightness sang, melodiously, just inside her ribcage. And in the darkness of their bedroom with faded venetian blinds, against the pillows, where he couldn't see, she let the tears well up and spill over for the second time.

But this time, they set her free.

--

Three years later – years that meant something as they passed, years that saw her grow and change – when she had let the train run its course through her life, she found that she could open her eyes and unclench her fists, let her head rest against the seat back, and open her eyes fully to the rush of sun and wind. She no longer felt as if she would blow away with the slightest breeze; she had found her roots and planted them deep into the soil of the present.

Two years after that, she found that the great ruins of her life were not so much gaping skeletons, but instead souvenirs of simpler and sweeter times. She picked up a piece and carried it with her always, but she did not again make the mistake of clutching at gossamer shreds of the past that soon evaporated in the sunlight.

On the sixth year after they met, she found that she was just as strong in mind and body as her lover. She was no longer a broken bird that he had picked up from the side of the road. She had grown her own wings and regained her will of steel.

And nine years after the day they met, she discovered that as much as it hurt when his train left the station, it was infinitely more painful to wait in limbo for him to return home. She would no longer sit on her suitcase and weep, she decided willfully. Instead, she picked herself up and dusted herself off, carrying her suitcase with her own two hands. She walked straight-backed and strong along her _own _path, carving her _own _way. And when his train pulled back into the terminal, she welcomed him with an unrestrained joy.

--

From the beginning, she had known that their shared train was not one meant for blue skies and lush valleys. It had crashed and burned along the way, leaving a relic of smoking wreckage. Their train tracks were littered with the debris of their chaotic pasts, and the paths along their mountains were steep.

Yet strangely, when they reached the end of the winding tracks, she found that she was grateful for the tumultuous ride that had brought her there. But she knew unquestionably – deep inside her heart and mind – that the journey was not yet over.

And so when the train lurched into the final station, she found his hand – calloused and rough, a hand well-versed in the hardships of travel – twined inescapably with hers. They stepped down from the train that had brought them so many miles, and watched it swerve into motion, carrying more broken souls on their own personal paths.

Together, they turned their backs on the world of known and familiar. She felt the blessing of her past lover as a cool kiss on her forehead. And at the same time, felt the warm lips of her present and future love against her own, meeting her passion for passion, doubt for doubt, love for love: a promise on this uncertain path.

Miles stretched in front of them – painful and long, they held another promise, one of chaos and doubt. But together, they found that they did not mind the extra distance. Their journey was not yet over. And, as she strode willfully out into the blessing of her future – matching his every stride, muscles singing beneath her skin – catastrophes and chaos be damned – she knew with all her heart and all her soul that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

This was a journey she was going to finish.


	23. Temptation

**Um, hi, guys. It's...uh, it's been a while. :D (Cough cough...approximately five months.)**

**So this has been sitting on my email for a while, staring at me. I originally wrote it for Sylver - a gift while I was amidst my Victiorian-era obsession - but I figure you guys deserve a little something-something. So, enjoy! This is a total, complete drabble, with no plotline or point; it is AU, Victorian-era, Kori/Rae deliciousness. Ah, and a side note, because I value your purity of mind: If girl-on-girl isn't your thing, by all means, read no further. If it is, then have fun. :)**

**Love and apologies for the drought,**

**Phina**

**--**

Rachel twirled gracefully, her palms locked tight with Kori's. Their faces were perhaps too close – cheeks separated by eyelashes and breathy giggles – but their movements were giddily beautiful and no one dared stop them. Kori's eyes glittered like borrowed jewels.

"We are not quite proper, are we?" she whispered into Rachel's neck as they waltzed. The other girls glanced over, suspicion making nests in their eyes. A tiny blonde laughed behind her hand and murmured delicate little scandals into the ear of another.

The room whirled dizzily, a Catherine wheel of a dancefloor, and Rachel had to remember to breathe before answering.

"I think not," she whispered back, finally, a warm flush shuddering down her back, blazing red where Kori's fingertips splayed brazenly across her spine. "But we were never meant to fit inside boxes, were we?"

Kori eyed the girls swaying around them, maintaining a careful three inches between their chests. She tossed her swathe of scarlet curls and vined around Rachel until their arms became one and their lashes dusted butterfly kisses against their cheeks."Most _definitely _not."

--

Later, after the murmurs of the dance lesson had faded to a gentle rustling among the foliage, Rachel rapped at Kori's bedroom door.

"Are you decent?" Rachel called from the hallway, her voice pitched low and unintentionally sensuous.

"Am I ever, when you are around?"

There was a birdsong laugh, and Rachel opened the door, only to lean sumptuously against it. Kori smiled. Rachel was but half-dressed in a cotton shift and stockings, her corset laced so tightly that her pale half-moon breasts strained at the seams. It was a shocking contrast to Kori's own ball gown – shimmering emerald silk with a prim neckline and a waterfall of slick skirts – which was draped ceremoniously across the bed.

Kori turned so that Rachel could tighten her corset laces, wincing only slightly as her ribs _crk_-creaked. "Aiming to impress, are we?" she asked, winded, with a glance to Rachel's bare chest. "I daresay your mother would have a fit to see the state of your corset."

Rachel tugged a little harder on the straps, but allowed herself a tiny smile and kissed Kori's jaw briefly. "I only care to impress one woman, and she's a far cry from my mother."

"Am I not as good as a mother?" Kori asked, mischievously. "I care for you, at the very least."

Rachel's eyebrows curved upwards, her face amused. "You're a better mother than she in many ways. But you've never tucked me into bed." She drifted to Kori's vanity table and dabbed a hint of rose-essence to the pulse-point of her wrist. "Never made me clothes, or fed me when I was ill."

Kori turned; traced patterns on Rachel's half-exposed breast with her pinky finger. Glowing, glimmering patterns. "Well," she said softly, letting the words turn dark and smoky in her mouth, "there is one similarity between the two of us." Rachel tilted her head up and Kori kissed her way down her throat, and Kori had to concentrate hard to string words together. "She's not the only one to see you naked."

Rachel's eyes darkened with desire – she scrabbled at the pearly cords of Kori's corset, ripping it from her lover's tanned back. Her own half-exposed chest blushed only slightly as Kori kissed her way to the warm place between her breasts; and, green silk dress be damned, they fell together onto the rumpled bed, and thought no more.


	24. Motorcycle

So this has been sitting on my hard drive for a very, very long time. I've fiddled and tweaked and re-written and I'm so beyond fine-tuning that I kind of just want to get it out in the open. Also, I haven't uploaded anything of worth in about a year (Full disclosure: I hate about the last three or four chapters of this thing. I hate them with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns all going supernova.) and you guys deserve something cool.

I never did get around to explaining the beginning, so here's the gist:

X and Jinx meet up because they keep finding each other in the same sort of situations - minor Criminal-ish Behavior in the city - and eventually find themselves in a relationship, blah blah. Jinx is best friends with Rachel but Rachel doesn't like X at all because she thinks that X is going to land Jinx in jail through some scheme. Plus he's an asshole and she can't stand assholes. Anyway, they have a falling-out over X, but Jinx tries to ignore it and goes back to her relationship with X. However, when she walks into their apartment and sees X up against the wall with another girl, there are some criminal-ish tendencies inside of her that prove a little harder to ignore...

**Pairing: **Jinx/X (Yeah, I never thought it was possible, either.)

**Genre: **AU (Only mild connotations of it, really.)

**Rating: **T, because I have developed a potty mouth.

**How much do I love you guys? **Lots :)

---

Later, Jinx remembered how she always loved the smell of him: dark and wild, smelling fiercely of gunpowder and deliciously unruly. He had a habit of wearing his sleek leather jacket even when he wasn't riding his motorcycle and she liked the way his hands were rough and callused and dishonored every inch of her skin. Sometimes she stood before the mirror and mussed her hair to match the way his always was after a midnight ride, but she tousled it carefully – with gel – instead of letting the wind do the work for her.

Later, she thought that maybe engaging in a screaming match with Rachel wasn't worth it. She thought that they'd been angry and proud and too alike in their personalities, and that it was stupid to get worked up over a boy, and that maybe she'd let it drag on too long.

Later, when she saw him kissing that girl up against their apartment's wall, she didn't even have the liberty of being shocked. She'd known it was coming for a long time. But she'd be damned if she left without the last word. She broke into his garage that night, using the silver lock picking kit he'd given her as a joke and then, when she kissed him into compliance, taught her to use.

If she'd wanted to be dramatic, she probably could have used the spare gasoline in the jug by the door to start a small fire, or committed mild acts of mayhem with the half-empty cans of spray paint idling on the thick plastic shelves that lined the walls. But scorch marks faded, and spray paint washed away with the rain. No, Jinx wanted to screw with him. She wanted to make as much of an impression on him as he'd made on her – and, more importantly, she wanted him to feel the exact same resentment and helplessness and unbridled fury that she was privy to now.

She took one look at the motorcycle – sleek black, every inch screaming adrenaline – and wheeled it from its careful moorings out onto the blindingly white driveway. It was only fitting, really, that she take this machine as payment for three months of wasted carnival tickets and pay-per-view movies; it would feel so right to smell burned rubber and gasoline as she stole back her days and weeks, time she'd never really wanted to give away. This machine had taken them so far and so fast and stolen her breath and wits at the same time. She wasn't going to let it take anything more from her, ever again.

It was tempting to steal his scuffed black leather jacket from the peg by the door, but she couldn't stand to let it touch her skin. Instead she stripped off her sweater and left it on the floor – it was 100% cashmere and a gift from him: stolen, of course. (Was there any moment in their relationship that didn't have anything to do with burglary, or deceit, or betrayal? She couldn't think of a single one.)

But that was irrelevant. They had no relationship, not anymore.

Jinx took one last look into the garage – filled with shiny tools and stolen gadgets – and swung herself onto the motorcycle, wearing only jeans and a tank top. As she screeched out the driveway, leaving big black scorch marks on his flawless cement, the sun felt like a blessing on her bare shoulders.

She ground their memories into the asphalt as she drove, giving them up to gravel and tar, letting the street reclaim what she no longer wanted.

When she finally coasted to a stop, her shoulders were burned from the sun – now low in the sky – and the fuel tank's arrow was hovering alarmingly close to the vicinity of "If You're Currently Traveling on a Lonely Highway Without Extra Fuel You're Shit Out of Luck".

"Fine," she muttered, and looked up at the bridge in front of her, a graceful arch over a still and silent lake. She didn't need to go any further, because they'd never traveled to this lake together. She'd never sat on the bridge's thick stone walls with him and had no memories of driving by this desolate, beautiful beach.

It was perfect.

The still waters were the cool blue of watered ink, perfectly smooth. Well, hell – they wouldn't be for long.

Jinx wrapped the elastic hair band from her wrist three times around the clutch, slid off the seat, and kicked it into neutral. The engine snarled, as if it could sense what she was planning. She patted it sympathetically. She didn't have anything against it, after all. Just its owner. And the memories it carried with it.

She gunned the engine. The motorcycle roared again, almost jerking out of her hands. She felt its trembling mirrored in her chest.

Ahead of her, the lake was shot through with brilliant gold sunshards, surrounded by evenly-spaced weathered stone pillars. She aimed the nose of the bike to a gap between the columns.

Slowly – so slowly – she pressed the brake, then shifted the bike into first. It juddered underneath her hands.

Somewhere to the left of her, a nightingale began to sing.

Jinx decided that she'd count to four – his least favorite number. Her palms were damp. Her breath rattled up her lungs. His face swam suddenly into her mind, and she pinned the thought to the bike so that when she finally let go, she would be free of him at last.

One. (She'd never liked his lips. They were too full for his face – too feminine to balance out his fine-boned features. She'd be glad to be rid of them.)

Two. (If he was really going to go all the way with that tramp back in the apartment, she'd be overjoyed to be able to laugh in his face when he came down with genital crabs.)

Three. (He'd never thought she was pretty. He thought her elbows were too sharp and her face too pinched and he hated when she wore his clothes. He could go screw himself for all she cared.)

Four –

"Screw you, asshole," she muttered, and then she let everything fly.

It was magnificent, really; that beautiful bike, soaring upwards in a perfect arc before it hurtled to its death, spitting a trail of greasy smoke behind from the tailpipe. Time slowed and stopped for an endless moment – she saw the flawless arch of its flight, the sleek lines of the pitch-black metal, and somewhere in the aerodynamic lines of the bodywork and the well-worn tires, she saw the time she'd spent on it and the memories it carried.

Not for long.

Slowly, so slowly, the nose tipped towards the water – and then it was hurtling down towards the silent waters and all the memories were whipping past, now gone in the breeze, and the catastrophic slap as that beautiful bike hit the lake's surface only made her grin that much wider.

For the next hour or so, Jinx perched on the cool stone pillars by the lakeside, savoring the setting sun against her back and the trembling song of the nightingale to her left. The clear waters in front of her shimmered with the passing of fish beneath the surface, but she couldn't see the bike underneath the gold-tinted water. It was just as well, really.

Her phone rang suddenly – the Beatles ringtone incongruous against the nightingale's lullaby.

She flipped it open. "Yeah?"

"You _bitch._ Where the hell is my bike?"

His voice was just slightly thinner than she remembered, and perhaps a little higher, too. He was very nearly a tenor. She'd always hated that.

"Are we laboring under the assumption that it's missing?" she asked, ladling enough sarcasm onto her words to infuriate him.

"You took it, goddamn you. Do you understand how expensive that motorcycle is? Do you even have the _slightest_ idea how much the bodywork _alone _cost, you little slut?"

Jinx looked out across the gorgeous sapphire lake; she felt its desolate beauty as an ache in her skin and heart. Someday, when she'd wiped her memories clean, she'd have to come back to this place. Someday.

He was still ranting furiously in her ear. She cut in with, "It was overdue on its smog emissions exam." The blasé tone of her voice was real. "This is California. We take that kind of stuff seriously."

"What the fu – "

"Excuse me," she said coolly. "I have another call to make."

She hung up on him mid-profanity and, without pausing, speed-dialed Rachel.

"Hello?"

"Hey, can you pick me up?"

There was a long, loaded-revolver silence. Jinx could feel her heartbeat thudding jaggedly in her chest.

Rachel finally answered, her voice cautious. "Why should I?"

Jinx bit her lip. Strange, that this conversation could make her heart race when she'd just broken up with a bastard and sent his motorcycle soaring into a lake. "Because you're my friend." She fiddled with a loose thread in the seam of her jeans. "And I'm a bitch. And because you're the only one who bothers to call me out when I'm being a bitch. And because, um, I'm –" she swallowed "– sorry."

Time got sticky for a few seconds while Jinx's heart hung beatless in her chest.

"I should be royally pissed at you right now."

"Pretty much."

"I think I _am _royally pissed at you right now."

Jinx felt her fingers tighten, just slightly, on the loose thread of her jeans. She suppressed the urge to bite back with a one-liner. She needed this friendship back, more than she wanted to admit – and what was that stupid saying they had? Pride goeth before the fall?

She and her pride were falling big-time. But this was worth it.

"I don't blame you," she managed to say. Her pride cringed at the words.

Finally Rachel sighed, a long static-rush of breath. "You're still on my shit list, you know. And you're still a bitch."

Jinx heard the words, but her pride somehow forgot to wince and what she was thinking was, _She forgives me! _"I should be on your shit list until I'm forty."

"We might be able to negotiate your sentence a little." Rachel paused for a second. "I guess I was pretty bitchy myself."

"Birds of a feather."

"Yeah, well." Jinx heard the smallest smirk in her voice before Rachel coughed, unused to any kind of emotional exchange, and asked, "Where are you?"

Jinx finally let herself smile, and it was like the icebergs in her chest had broken up and floated away. "Doesn't matter where I am, just matters who I'm with." She let that sit in the air for a second, and then asked, "If you subtract an asshole from my current company, what does that leave you with?"

She could literally _feel _Rachel's eyes widening. Her voice betrayed the tiniest hint of hope when she popped the question. "You ditched him?"

"Hell yes. I am flying solo, baby."

There was another pause, heavy with their past arguments and sharp with unspoken regrets.

But Rachel didn't tell her "I told you so," like she'd feared. She didn't laugh and tell her to screw her dysfunctional life. She didn't even pause.

"Where are you, for real?"

"Some lake off Exit 94."

"On my way."

---

Yay for cliffhanger endings. :)

Just because I'm a symbolism geek, I chose the nightingale to sing as Jinx was preparing to drive the motorcycle into the lake because, traditionally, nightingales symbolize both melancholy and joy entwined, and also the loss of love. Plus birds in general symbolize freedom. (No, seriously, I have way too much fun with symbolism. It's probably my favorite thing since Regina Spektor came into existence, and believe me, my adoration of her holds no bounds.)

Love you guys lots. Thanks for putting up with the drought.

--Phina

(And hey, guess who just turned 15?)


	25. Wicked

Found this on my email - wrote it at midnight about six months ago. This seems to be a repeat event.

Rae/Red X, with Robin trying to intervene. Enjoy, loves!

**Chapter 25: Wicked**

The vicious corners of her heart loved the murder in him: the way his hands desecrated her skin and his wild gunpowder smell, the scuffs of his favorite leather jacket and the clean sweat that plastered dark bangs to golden skin.

"Trigon's the cause of this. You do know that, don't you? He's the only reason you're engaging in this - this - this _rebellion. _This _farce._"

"Yes."

It was true that Trigon approved of her hellion: her vagabond who had a dark past and a heart like stone. Her father knew the rage inside her - knew its shape and sharp corners, knew it was fierce and seething, always on the verge of explosion. Her father knew that the rogue with the wicked mouth had a way of staking out street corners and flirting with shadows; that there was smoke on his breath and a revolver in his back pocket; that he liked to wear vintage silk vests in the evening and sip Cognac as he lounged in an easy chair - perhaps before a roaring fire with a Bolivar cigar lolling at the corner of his mouth - because it made him feel like the master of the house on an old black and white soap. And, most importantly, her father knew that the rage inside their hearts could have been twins, and that they were but catalysts to a vengeful explosion.

Yes, she knew all of this - and no, she did not care.


	26. Sleep

**I'm pretty much in love with any pairing involving X at this point. Not gonna lie. I am his slave. His SLAVE, I tell you.**

**This is being uploaded to make me feel productive while I marshal myself into writing Sylver's b-day present. Could you spare some encouragement? Pretty-please?**

**

* * *

**

Red X was many things – slapdash and reckless, professional and all-knowing, glib and amused, a mess of human truths and fears – but there wasn't a single organism in the galaxies stupid enough to pretend that he liked commitment.

It irked him.

It set his teeth on edge.

The thought of it – pinning him to the wall with _trust, _with _responsibility_ – was enough to give him a migraine.

And that, he mused as he stroked Starfire's swath of scarlet hair, was as good an explanation as any for the dull throbbing behind his temple.

She was beautiful in sleep, really – all angles and curves against the comforter, her golden skin giving off a faint sunshine glow.

Beautiful, yes, but she mocked him as well.

Those open, inviting features.

Those lushly parted lips.

She reeked of devotion.

He couldn't stomach it.

He slipped out the open window of her room, carefully avoiding the fluttering drapes, deluding himself that he didn't want to look back. When she woke a few seconds later – suddenly, almost violently, sucking in her breath as her eyes unshuttered – the room was empty. Even the bed didn't miss him. He left no creases in the blankets.

Starfire had the strangest feeling that she was grasping at someone's coattails. When she fell back asleep, hours later, she dreamed in black and scarlet.


End file.
